The propaganda of World War II was blunt and lurid, much like the art that adorned the pages of pulp magazines of the time.

The posters are inspiring and commanding to be sure, but they’re also a little bit unsavory.
They tap into primal fears—of death, war, other races—and the carry such weight that even decades later, the viewer feels as though the entire war effort hinges on his or her own actions.

It’s propaganda at its most direct, without the guile or subterfuge that has come to be associated with the term.

Twenty of these posters, all printed by the U.S. government during the war, are now on display at Drake Farm Books in North Hampton through the end of January.

The posters are from the estate of a Kingston man responsible for hanging the posters around town during the war. He kept the posters and, following his death last year, his daughter brought them to Drake Farm where they are currently on display and for sale.

Visually, the posters are bold and dynamic—simple, stark and compelling images reinforced by the commanding, sometimes aggressive messages on the posters. What’s striking is the chilling imagery used by the artists. In one, three children, one of whom is clutching an American flag, stand on a grassy knoll, a swastika-shaped shadow surrounding them. “Don’t let that shadow touch them! Buy war bonds” it proclaims.

Another poster features an arm, adorned with Nazi regalia, clutching a dagger on which a bible is impaled. “This is the enemy,” it reads. There’s another poster with a large, startling image of a snarling Japanese soldier clutching a rifle, his skin greasy and yellow like a rotten banana. One poster, featuring a smiling soldier waltzing off to war, ominously suggests he may never return from the front. This was a war, the posters suggest, that was grisly, violent and all too real.

Here was a war that infiltrated every aspect of life, from daily travel habits to backyard gardens. “Can all you can!” sounds like a ridiculous message now—who cans vegetables now, anyway?—but during the war years, frugality was a vital sacrifice. Posters commanding people to limit their travel (so as to conserve fuel for the troops) would be unheard of now, even though prices are higher and fuel supplies scarcer.

The real attraction of the posters is not as much their artistic merits but the current social implications. The propaganda of the Iraq invasions is subtler, more insidious. There are bogus news reports, flashy video games and real scare tactics, like the threat of the government wiretapping dissenters. The uncomfortable parts of the war, its consequences on our people and society, are downplayed and rarely acknowledged.

The Bush administration has, more than a few times, strained to connect World War II and the Iraq War in the minds of voters. It’s a difficult connection to swallow, not just because of the superficial differences between the two (the size and scale of the conflicts, the immediacy of the threat to America, etc.), but because of the simple philosophical differences. The current war is one that lacks that larger sense of sacrifice, that unified feeling that everyone—from auto mechanics to schoolchildren—are part of the fight.  We’re not being asked to conserve fuel, start “victory gardens” or donate our used tires to Uncle Sam. Instead, we’re told to consume more, spend to our heart’s content and sacrifice nothing, except for the lives of American soldiers. 


The Noble Pursuit
through Jan. 27
at Drake Farm Books
148 Lafayette Road
North Hampton, 603-964-4868