The glory of War

[seal]

An ongoing project at the Colorado State Archives has been to restore old WWII posters and then scan them so they become preserved. There are many great ones and they were often rather BIG (so, I've obviously re-sized them here), but check it out.
Didn't war sound better 60 years ago?



And the lil' lady back home can carry her own bags, imagine that:





Where this kind of male body wasn't gay art



I love how this poster make it sound like WAC (Women Army Corps) are only standing around and watching the soldiers fight, with beautiful troubled movie-star faces!



This one is hilarious! Look down to the right and see the little picture of Hitler, and how you can "Eat to Beat the Devil"



Silly woman, stop bothering me! ("where's the meat?" had such obvious dirty associations for me,haha)



THIS is what the meat is saved for!



And everyone has to buckle down



There are things you can do with your slender little hands! Like this:



And this:



And this:


Also, the army needs CANS:


So they can do THIS:


And THIS:


These guys are not kidding around...


little missy!


Finally good for something!



Colorado did their best


to uphold the picture


A classical War-Fund poster


Veterans must not be forgotten either


Another reminder


And all the War-releif posters to benefit allied or victimized countries, most of them very dramatic!




Often portrayed soldier and child, of any ethnicity




Or just children


Mother & child (I find the visigoth text type on this one pretty ironic!)


Jeez, the poles are on march evidently


And the poor Russian soldier is all alone


This type of aesthetic motif was apparently not invented by the Communists, even though they used it often enough

Comments

[mojodragonfly.livejournal.com]

Dr. Seuss did war propaganda too
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dspolitic/

[witchmob.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Thank you for posting these. They are amazing, for so many crazy reasons.

[kejn.livejournal.com]

wonderful! i feel like saving fats for explosives now. :-)

[jinxle.livejournal.com]

Wow! Propaganda-tastic! I've come over all 1984'ish.

(and to the lady who's eyes have seen the glory... next time someone shows you their glory, knee him in the nuts!)

[saskatchewan.livejournal.com]

Fantastic. Thanks for posting them!

[aquilinum.livejournal.com]

I adore WWII cultural history. This has absolutely tilted a mixed emotion day to the very bright! Many, many thanks for the time and effort here.

Too bad I don't still have my WWII submarine button icon...

[shipbuilding.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this! Sealie, you are the best.

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

Propaganda tactics are always amazing. Though what's interesting to me is how much more efficient the wartime domestic economy was: taking what is normally waste and turning it into munitions, etc.

And I love the "There's no black market! I promise!" posters. Seriously.

Not to belabor the obvious, but I also love how there's only two non-white guys in the posters: one for the Chinese, and one black dude in the corner of a poster.

Thanks for sharing these! :)

[browniegirl322.livejournal.com]

1. why is that woman pouring hot fat on metal dildos???


2. Some of these are just visually fantastic (i visually love the Greece poster)

3. Hitler as the devil is just....there are no words...


thanks for posting these ivona. i love when you do things like this. they make my day.

[wavebreaker.livejournal.com]

So where's the "Help Iraq" poster?

:-P

[somerled.livejournal.com]

Wow. Some things never change!

[jhvilas.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you put up the "Save waste fats for explosives" poster. It's one of my favorites. I first saw it several years ago, and printed out a small copy to put on my refrigerator. When friends come over and see it, they're always like "WTF?" :)

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Those are awesome. Thanks.

I often wonder if such propaganda would
actually work today, and I think people
would be too jaded for it to be effec-
tive now.

[inertiam.livejournal.com]

Oh, but where's my Rosie? Oh! That Rosie!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_young_liars/]

why, i had no idea that by simply eating two vegetables a day, i could personally defeat hitler! thanks sealy!

[jedispice.livejournal.com]

Interesting that some of the posters are atually about recycling... which the USA doesn't seem to remember today. Um, and not many of us others either.

I liked the Save the Fat poster though, hadn't seen it before. Oh, I have downloaded all of them of course. It's interesting to compare them to some of the nazi propaganda posters, the imagery is pretty much the same.

[jedispice.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the guy in the Italy poster look like George Dubya BTW?