Keep Calm: Visualising the war in posters
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This document summarizes a presentation on British propaganda posters during World War 2. It discusses how posters were used by the Ministry of Information to build national identity and encourage public service. Different chapters covered representations of Britain, industrial posters, messages about careless talk and venereal disease, and how poster campaigns aimed to mobilize citizens for the war effort. The presentation analyzed how posters visually communicated with the public and were part of the larger propaganda environment during total war.
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Keep Calm: Visualising the war in posters
- 1. Keep Calm and Carry On: Visualising The People’s War in Posters Weds 11th Jan Sandra Burslem 3.01, 2-4 pm Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
- 2. Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl The story began here… … #IWMLondon
- 5. ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’: Introduction Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 6. Benedict Anderson ‘Imagined Communities’ what ‘makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name’ http://tinyurl.com/imaginedcom munities Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 8. 2010: BBC Inside Out Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 9. A public notice aims to inform or command. A poster aims to seduce, to exhort, to sell, to educate, to convince, to appeal. Whereas a public notice distributes information to interested or alert citizens, a poster reaches out to grab those who might otherwise pass it by. Susan Sontag Read more: http://j.mp/ww2posterch2 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 10. Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl Chapter 1: ‘Your Country Needs You’: The Pre-War British Experience of the Propaganda Poster
- 12. Chapter 2: ‘Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution’: Commissioning, Design & Distribution: The MOI and Morale Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 13. Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl • Central governmental publicity machine • Formed September 1939 • Tell the citizen ‘clearly and swiftly what he is to do, where he is to do it, how he is to do it and what he should not do’. The Ministry of Information
- 14. Total War • During the war, a ‘shared sense of national identity had to be mobilised amongst the people of Britain’. Achieved partly through propaganda posters, more and more people ‘were encouraged to identify themselves as active citizens, as active members of the nation’, a citizenship ‘to be earned by communal and individual service of one’s nation in wartime’. • PhD thesis (2004), quoting Noakes, L., War and the British: Gender and National Identity, 1939-91, 1998, p.48. Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 15. Posters did not stand alone • Legislation • Newspapers • Radio • Cinema • Leaflets • Window Displays Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 16. Chapter 3: ‘Your Britain: Fight for it Now’: Representations of ‘Your Britain’, Urban and Rural Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 18. Chapter 4: ‘The Attack Begins in the Factory’: Industrial Posters Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 20. Chapter 5: ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’: Fighting the ‘Enemy Within’ Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 21. Fougasse: Humour Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 22. Chapter 6: ‘VD: Delay is Dangerous’: The ‘Problem’ of Venereal Disease in Wartime Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 23. How to keep well in wartime During three years of total war the nation’s stubborn good health has been invaluable to out war effort. Even so, as a nation we are still using about 22 million weeks’ work each year through common and often preventable illnesses such as colds and influenza, dyspepsia, biliousness, neurasthenia, rheumatism, boils and other septic conditions. This is calculated to be the equivalent to the loss of 24,000 tanks, 6,750 bombers, and 6,750,000 rifles a year, not to mention the pain and inconvenience we suffer as individuals. How to Keep Well in Wartime, Ministry of Information, 1943 (Booklet) Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 24. Questionnaire Response The one that seems very funny to me now but not at the time was VD Kills. In those days such a thing was never mentioned such was the ignorance, but it must have been a very big problem as this was the largest poster of the lot. When you asked about it, a look of horror would come over the person’s face and you would get no explanation. Then one of the schoolboys got the full facts from a soldier at the nearby camp. “You went deaf, and blind and your nose fell off” and you caught this affliction by talking to girls. Needless to say after that you only spoke to boys. I remember averting my eyes every time I passed that poster. Male, Rotherham, reply to questionnaire, March 1998. Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 26. ‘The Dawn of Victory’: Conclusion – From the Past to the Present Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 27. “There is nothing timeless and unchanging about this culture; fandom originates as a response to specific historical conditions (Jenkins, 1992, 3). Those conditions stem from shifts in the media and their tendency to reconfigure everyday experience.” Duffet, M. Understanding Fandom: An introduction to the study of media fan culture, 2013, p.5 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 28. Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/magazine/0 5FOB-consumed-t.html?ref=magazine
- 29. Visiting Barter Books Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 30. Artist Biographies http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/theartofwar/artists Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 31. Publication • Imperial War Museum + ? • Manchester University Press • IB Tauris • Lund Humphries • Thames & Hudson • Yale University Press • Phaidon • Routledge • Palgrave Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 32. Thank you for your time Questions? Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
Editor's Notes
- Keep Calm and Carry On: Visualising The People’s War in Posters ---------------- Brief description of the project’s scope and content: In 2016, the tourist gift shops are full of mugs, aprons, bags with the slogan ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, or one of its many subverted versions. The poster was part of a series designed in 1939 for the Second World War, but came to prominence in 2008/9 alongside the economic crisis. It was ‘discovered’ by Barter Books in 2001, and resulted in the BBC questioning if it was ‘the greatest motivational poster ever’? Why do people from so many corners of the globe recognise it, love it, and purchase it? Do they understand where this poster fits within the wider story of propaganda posters produced by the British government, designed largely for the British civilian population in the Second World War? This book will give that wider picture. Following introductory chapters in which propaganda theories, poster design from the 1890s through to 1939, and the production and distribution processes of the Ministry of Information (MOI) are addressed, the book will continue with four themed case studies, examining poster foci in depth, each structured around its context and planning, design, and reception. The themes will address the ‘imagined community’ that people believed they were fighting for, industrial propaganda campaigns, a focus upon ‘the enemy within’ (particularly ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’), and those compromising the war effort through their sexual behaviour, putting themselves at risk of venereal disease. The book will conclude by bringing us back from the past to the present, seeking to understand why wartime propaganda posters have intruded upon the public consciousness at particular points in recent decades. In particular, it will focus upon how the commercialization of history, and the development of the Internet have contributed to the popularity of Keep Calm and Carry On. An appendix will contain biographies of poster artists from the Second World War, collated alphabetically.
- In 1991 my attention was caught in the Imperial War Museum London, by this poster (photographed in the same place 3-4 years ago, before the museum redevelopment – no originals out now) … and I was able to buy a postcard of it. It always makes me wonder what images, messages, and other forms of communication are noticed by others, what meaning it has for them, and what actions people are inspired to take by messages such as these… this one clearly having what we would now describe as a ‘call-to-action’ within the digital or marketing world…. (although there was a problem with ‘joined up thinking’ at one point, as some women went to recruitment centres, and were turned away as they weren’t needed!) From this one image, and it’s availability as a souvenir, I ended up writing my A-Level project (1993) … my BA dissertation (1997) … and my PhD (2004) on the topic of Second World War propaganda posters … seeking to understand what the government was trying to achieve in producing the posters, how the ideas were worked out by the designers, and how people seemed to respond.. And now it’s definitely going into one (popular) book, and hopefully two – including a more academic reworking of my thesis..
- I’d written in all of my theses about the prominent 1939 government campaign “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution with Bring Us Victory” (people said they simply wanted to be told what to do, as their morale was already high enough, thank you very much! ), along with ‘Freedom is in Peril, Defend it with all your might’ and as an aside, wrote a bit of material about the other poster ‘Keep calm and carry on’ – never used, but designed at the same time… I first picked up on the interest in this in 2009, when I was contacted by the Daily Express, who quoted material from my website: “For many the wartime slogans, such as Dig for Victory, Careless Talk Costs Lives, and Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases, have never been forgotten. Such slogans have been passed on as a part of our common heritage,” says Dr Rebecca Lewis, a historian who has made a study of the subject. “Posters that were not published or were withdrawn also make for interesting study, particularly for reasons as to why they were rejected,” she adds. “However, there do not seem to be many examples of these, although whether this is because records of unsuccessful designs were not kept or because there were not many was not established.” I then picked up on that and started blogging about the journey that it made … and this is where I expect the book to make a full circle – with a final chapter focusing on nostalgia and internet memes, without which KCCO would never have had the coverage that it has had.
- If you search for ‘KCCO Souvenirs’, these are the first options that come up (we could talk about internet algorithms, which have put Barter Books at the top, but we won’t)… interesting mix – including Chinese, mix with Union flag, but doesn’t show here all the WEIRD (and poor phrasing) that have emerged ... But this prompted me to think – just how much do people actually know about the TRUE stories behind all this MARVELLOUS TAT... It’s still not too late for that 2004 thesis to make it’s way into the world, and in 2019 it’s the 80th anniversity of the creation of the poster that has caught the nation’s attention! I sent the book proposal off at the end of the summer, and the IWM have asked for a ‘gift book’ to sell in the shops (ready for next September), just 20k words in a Ladybird style, and then in March we’ll take the more academic book proposal to the London Book Fair and see if we can find a publisher to co-publish. Last summer I was negotiating with Asa Briggs (most famous historian on 20th C comms) to write the foreword for the book, he’d agreed - but unfortuately he died earlier this year.
- This chapter will explain the book’s remit, structure, and aims, highlighting contemporary interest in the topic, and briefly identifying the growth of social, visual, material and cultural history to provide research on ‘The People’s War’ and its posters. This book identifies with the works of scholars such as Angus Calder, Asa Briggs, Arthur Marwick, Geoffrey Barraclough, Lucy Noakes, Jerome de Groot, John Tosh, Malcolm Smith, Mark Donnelly, Richard Howells, as it focuses upon the experiences of ‘the ordinary citizen’ during wartime, and considers the relationship between the past and the present… something I’d love Sarah to pick up on re nostalgia.
- During the Second World War, the government sought to offer a shared sense of national identity that people were prepared to fight (and die) for. In a war in which the democratic needed to be set against the totalitarian, in what quickly became ‘The People’s War’, the Government commissioned many different poster styles and other forms of communication to get the message across, some with humour, others more didactic (of key importance – when asked about digital/churches in an interview with the Guardian before Christmas indicated that bottom-up, smaller campaigns have a lot of success because reach a wider audience – people don’t like the pressure of top-down). … And what is it about that sense of belonging that means for Brits, this still makes sense, and is something they want to buy into (or, to be honest, more that the tourists want to buy because it’s a “British” thing?) Anderson indicated that citizens are likely to work together in ‘imagined communities’, “imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, of even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.” Anderson examines how tradition is constructed, invented and appropriated, often through symbolism based on false tradition It’s very much about the 21st Century and the time of crisis we are in … end of 2008 I returned from global travels … realising that I’d returned, with no job, no savings, to a time of recession… the slogan ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ definitely resonated with me… and I wasn’t the only one…
- By early 2009 the flurry of interest around the poster was HUGE, and the BBC was asking if it was the greatest motivational poster ever (despite the fact that it had never been used – though you’ll now see it at 1940s parties)…
- … was it simply drawing a nostalgic response for a time ‘when we all pulled together’ in the current time of economic crisis. So “that poster” 1939 – set of 3 posters – (1994-2004 research - focusing on the other 2) – planned pre-war, published asap war These posters also distributed, but so far as we can tell, never officially released – negative reaction to first 2 – seen as ‘wrong’ kind of message – no need for ‘morale boosting’, rather content that would indicate that people were ready to be contribute/be told what to do, so should have been pulped… 2001 – ‘discovered’ in Barter books, 2005 featured in the Guardian, 2009 (tied to economic crisis) – really took off – keep expecting it to die off, but it seems to have become part of British heritage (partly why I still want to be in the market).
- This first chapter will consider notions of propaganda, and understand the development of propaganda theory and professionalism of communications in the inter-war period, delineating the definition and function of a poster, as it was understood at the outbreak of war, and its place alongside other communications methods during the war. I often describe Twitter in particular as “the modern poster”, a short message, hoping to stand out in a crowded market, and attract some ‘engagement’. *Link to a talk did re KCCO/religious messages
- This chapter builds upon the conceptual aspects discussed in the introduction, to foreground the British experience of propaganda posters at the outbreak of the Second World War. The British poster is contextualised it through a brief investigation of the development of the poster world-wide, with a particular focus on European and avant-garde designs, considering the graphic influences on the poster, identifying and analysing trends and technologies from both worldwide and British art and design that may have influenced wartime artists – including considering how posters were used in the First World War. *Note – this ‘poster’ never actually a poster, but a magazine cover sometimes repurposed – someone’s written a whole book on that too! https://www.awm.gov.au/images/collection/items/ACCNUM_SCREEN/ARTV07420.JPG
- The chapter considers the use of the poster by commercial firms such as Shell, London Transport, Imperial Airways and Kodak, which worked as exemplars for the government. It also reflects on the use of posters by the state in the pre-war years to see the experience the government could draw on. State-linked agencies using propaganda posters ‘efficiently’ included the General Post Office, the Empire Marketing Board and the British Council. The poster is considered as both a commercial tool, and as a weapon in the government armoury, alongside other methods of communication, and investigates steps that the government took to determine its ‘effectiveness’ (through early forms of market research such as Mass Observation and Gallup). http://www.artvalue.com/photos/auction/0/39/39072/ellis-rosemary-clifford-20-to-visit-britain-s-landmarks-c-1397473.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/09/24/article-2208068-152F86FE000005DC-752_470x629.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/77/5c/bf/775cbfdc1fc384a692fcfad0a93b3d00.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/7b/d8/c9/7bd8c90077dd60851ad3dce8e2597647.jpg
- The third chapter moves on to consider the administrative history behind the posters. The Ministry of Information (MOI) was expected to be the central government publicity machine, regulating morale and behaviour amongst the British populace in the Second World War. The chapter seeks to understand how the MOI came into being, its role, and what it was able to learn from the First World War and interwar experience.
- The MOI, officially formed at the outbreak of the Second World War, was the central governmental publicity machine. Its role was to tell the citizen ‘clearly and swiftly what he is to do, where he is to do it, how he is to do it and what he should not do’. Notice that the citizen’s duty is in the masculine – feminine enfranchisement was still fairly new. Lots of debate about the MOI that we don’t need to get into – let’s just say the press didn’t give it an easy ride – partly because of fears of censorship – but it had been in planning since 1935, and was very carefully called MOI and not MOP, to distance itself from WW1 issues with the term ‘propaganda’.
- Total war - government was looking for ‘active’ citizenship, self-regulation, democratic, not driven by the overt force behind the totalitarian states… In the 1930s Aldous Huxley recognised that propaganda ‘canalises an already existing stream’; it is only effective on those already in tune with the ideas expressed. Propaganda encourages its audience further along the direction that they are already moving, and reinforces partly formed ideas…
- The chapter identifies the MOI’s commissioning and distribution process for posters, its relations with artists and designers, other departments and external agencies, and how posters worked alongside other forms of propaganda – including competing messages on other boards, or supporting messages in other formats. It considers access to paper stocks, how the MOI chose its sites, and whether it was voluntary or compulsory to display them. The chapter focuses in upon the planning processes for the first posters produced by the MOI, ‘Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution, will bring us victory’ (in the same series as Keep Calm and Carry On), to give us an overview of planning, design, production and distribution processes. It traces how these first posters show how the government initially attempted to deal with the wartime public through propaganda, and demonstrate how they expected the public to behave in wartime. Dangers of choice in a democracy … Balfour, p80: “In much the same way, people disregarded official appeals to carry their gas-masks or carry something white in the dark or cough into a handkerchief (‘Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases’) because they were unconvinced about the importance of doing so and believed into the bargain that, if it was really necessary, the Government would have issued orders rather than advice.”
- Moving into the first of four case studies, Lord Macmillan, the first Minister of Information, described the MOI as demonstrating ‘what Britain was fighting for, how Britain was fighting, and the need for sacrifice if the war was to be won’.
- People were being asked, as a duty of citizenship, to fight, so what were they being asked to fight for? Initially triggered by the two very different sets of images produced within the ‘Your Britain, Fight for it Now’ campaign in 1942, this chapter will consider the range of posters produced by the government, designed to reflect the ‘Britain’ that people were being asked to fight for. The land is always central to national identification in times of crisis, including war, and the ‘Your Britain’ series drew on both notions of ‘England’s green and pleasant land’ – a rural, pastoral past, with the landscape presented as part of English heritage; and hinted that industrialised urbanisation was one of progress for the future, tied to the modernistic vision of the Beveridge Report (being developed around the same time). How did the government appear to balance the two very different images, when propaganda has a tendency to make black and white more complex issues? Which of these representations of ‘Britain’ did the populace seem to chime with? *Note problems with women turning up to ‘help’ at the harvest in heels, with picnics…. http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/148/media-148509/large.jpg http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/401/media-401998/large.jpg
- In the second case study this chapter considers posters aimed at those working in industry, where the ‘Battle for Production’ supported military action.
- Those working in the factories needed convincing that the work that they were doing was as important as that on the front line. With a considerable body of material available, the chapter considers how industrial workers were perceived, and tactics that were used to improve production when every part produced was essential, but women needed to be presented as patriotic whether at home or in the factory. The Second World War was fought in a more businesslike way than the First World War, although there ‘was no longer the feeling that production came first, and people a long way second’ (R.Davies, Women and Work, 1975). In the early years of the war, those in the UK’s factories were encouraged to believe that they were playing a major part in aiding the nation’s survival. This chapter explores the posters used to maximise the industrial effort, identifying the themes that they drew upon, and the solutions proposed through a varied range of posters styles, including technical diagrams, Soviet-influenced messages and homegrown designs. http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/46/4613/72XFG00Z.jpg http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/284/media-284883/large.jpg?action=d&cat=posters https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Arm_Him_Art.IWMPST3378.jpg http://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/0611/presentations/Teaching%20website/images2/combined.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/INF3-160_Fighting_Fit_in_the_Factory_Artist_A_R_Thomson.jpg
- The dangers of carelessness were a constant theme throughout wartime posters: throwing away lit cigarettes; thoughtless fuel consumption; and wastage of scarce goods - with the biggest campaign against that of rumour and ‘careless talk’. Although a phrase largely associated with the Cold War and thereafter applied to more recent events, particularly terrorist campaigns, this chapter focuses on the idea of the ‘enemy within’. The concept is clearly evident in government anti-rumour campaigns, with strong fears of a ‘Fifth Column’ to be fought by a ‘Silent Column’. The chapter considers the history of the spy and the growth of intelligence services in the UK as concerns about ‘the spy’ (largely linked to improved communications) grew in the early years of the twentieth century. It chiefly focuses on careless talk campaigns which ran throughout the war, considering how spies were identified, class and gender were represented, the range of artistic styles used, and whether humour was a suitable medium for the subject. This chapter identifies the range of thinking which underlay the ‘careless talk’ posters, including: carelessness, ‘the other’, ‘the enemy’, (in)visibility, education, citizenship, family, nation, protectionism, friendship, personal responsibility, and death and humour.
- By ‘Fougasse’, art editor of Punch, (Aka Kenneth Bird), who both used and argued for the appropriate use of humour within the British context (within a crisis situation). Believed in the unifying quality of humour (common understanding of a joke creates a bond) – persuades without causing resentment Humour = can spotlight ridiculousness/foolishness of actions/irresponsible behaviour. Fougasse, BBC talk, few days after publication of posters = justified his use of humour for such a serious subject. “By placing it within a British cultural context he explained his emotional function of enabling people to deal with the difficult truths they do not wish to confront. It is precisely their lack of realism than enables cartoons to communicate powerful ideas in a non-threatening manner.” Fougasse’s images were so popular that they were reproduced of own volition! Barnicoat, writing in the 1970s, had noted about 1936 that “In England, humour was the great popular leveller and it was applied to most areas of advertising.” On a design level, English designs may have suffered in comparison with French designs, but “their real strength lay in the fact that their designs were on the very popular level of comedy..” 1920s and 30s – comic strip and movie cartoon = new influences in visual humour = apparent in poster design. In 1940, F.C. Bartlett wrote that he was wary about the use of humour: a ‘dangerous tool’, only really effective within the artist’s own population. The sense of humour needed to be known ‘intimately’ and ‘sympathetically’. Fougasse would have agreed with this, as would Eckersley who said that: “During some of the most trying times of the last war, when men were constantly under a great strain it was the ability to appreciate amusing things which helped them to carry on.” Wainwright, writing in 1943, thought that these ‘Fougasse cartoons are delightful but completely out of place in a ‘careless talk’ campaign; How can one be earnest about the matter when humour makes fun of the whole thing?’. However, for factory workers – cartoon or caricature, a more natural form of expression, so more ‘usable’. M-O research noted: the early ‘red’ posters, described as a failure as they ‘alienated many’ with their pompous language, whilst cartoons ‘injected some welcome humour’ and ‘set a new tone for official mass communication’, allowing people did to identify with them more, feeling they were aimed more PERSONALLY at them!
- In the fourth case study the book looks at campaigns produced by the government in an attempt to deal with the ‘problem’ of VD in wartime, when the rate of infection rose, particularly after 1941 This chapters questions how far attitudes to sexually transmitted diseases have roots in the past: whether supposed Victorian moral attitudes and prudery still held sway in the Second World War, and what popular attitudes to VD actually were. Through the fairly comprehensive range of VD posters from the Second World War, it is possible to study different guises that the campaign took over the course of the war, and the feeling about what was appropriate for different media. This chapter considers how VD was problematized within scientific and religious fields, and identifies which organisations spoke into the ‘problem’ as an issue of citizenship. There was much reaction to the big VD campaigns hosted by the MOI on behalf of the Ministry of Health, as they were placed in open public spaces for the first time, providing much information on public sentiment on the issue. As the chapter reflects on reactions to the posters, it identifies how far people recognised the need to fulfil their duties of citizenship through altering their sexual behaviour in order to remain ‘undiseased’, maintaining a healthy body that could fight in the war and produce offspring to help build the post-war future, whilst clarifying how the gendered experience was defined. Keywords: Venereal disease, health, body, citizenship, moral, science
- This booklet, produced by MOI for MOH in 1943, echoes notions from industrial campaigns - absenteeism through PREVENTABLE illness costing VAST QUANTITIES of war materials – and this was a poor show for one’s British citizenship… Interestingly, can now buy copies of this booklet... (and some others). These sources = demonstrate in "how many different spheres the government sought to influence people and, reflected back from these materials, is the image of who these people are.”
- Note, some of the material that Mass-Observation collected about the Coughs and Sneezes campaign was only collected as they really wanted to collect information on the success of the VD campaign, but to ‘soften’ people up, they collated a more innocuous “health survey”. VD was deemed to be a problem intensified by war, exacerbated by the disruption to normal life and by the movement of peoples and the armed forces.... Thought this quote was hilarious, but says a lot about scare tactics that were used.... With obvious success!
- Initially in the early twentieth century, ‘many men considered their first dose of clap a rite de passage into manhood’. By the Second World War a ‘“manly man” appears to have become one who had the sense and control to take precautions against infection’. Davidson, R., and Hall, L., op.cit., 2001, p.10. Significant in WW2: VD posters placed in open public spaces for the first time, causing great controversy. As we reflect on reactions to the posters, we see how far people recognised the need to fulfil their duties of citizenship through altering their sexual behaviour in order to remain ‘undiseased’, maintaining a healthy body that would fight the war and have the potential to build a new future. In many ways, still an expectation that men would seek out prostitutes (especially with the fear of dying, and the ease of travelling around a lot – love em and leave em, own money, away from family, etc.) – so was a lot of publicity to persuade men not to do so... Hello Girlfriend = similar to the fear put into that questionnaire response – the effect upon the man himself Delay is Dangerous is more of a “factual” get it fixed kind of message In “here comes the bride”, can see the influence of Eugenics movements – a vile crime! (22,000 posters produced – govt still trying to establish how many of them were actually on OUTDOOR sites, as display of posters was largely voluntary!) In early 1945 a series of seven posters was offered free to local authorities, consisting of three pictorial designs and four non-pictorial, designs. Several VD images use the colour red, signifying danger in western cultures, and in the pictorial designs the VD letters are used to graphically reinforce their message with a blood-red shadow falling over lives. The image of a shadow often recurs throughout designs dealing with VD, indicating something that darkens, or lurks, maybe in the background, damaging what it casts its range over. The image would have been familiar from other health campaigns about the ‘shadow on the lung’, tuberculosis (TB).. The shadow has long and evocative associations in discourse. It draws on religious ideas of coming out of the dark into the light, enlightenment coming from education, urban living in enclosed and shadowy areas; and criminal activity transacted in furtive, secretive, shadowy areas. Woman: Threat to her happiness, damaging her potential chances at marriage, thought the key path to happiness for women in the 1940s. Man: the shadow is on health, rather than on happiness. The significance of this unclear, although women were maybe deemed more concerned with ‘emotions’, men with concrete ‘health’. The woman looks apprehensively over her shoulder, although whether she is ‘to blame’ or an ‘innocent victim’ is unclear. The man has a different gaze that connects with the viewer, possibly to induce feelings of guilt. The use of photographs for these images indicates ‘reality’, ‘real people’ have this problem, and so could the viewer of the poster The persons used in these images look serious, young and middle class, challenging the traditional conception of VD as a problem of the urban poor. The poster ‘Shadow on his future’ purveys a similar message, although allowances would have to be made for a slightly different audience. This would have been aimed at both parents, one of whom may be an ‘innocent’ party. No trace can be found of a similar poster dealing with her future. NOTE: All the posters are aimed at an assumed HETERO SEXUAL audience... Homosexuality was still illegal in the 1940s, and therefore wasn’t even alluded to in campaigns... It wasn’t really an avenue I was following, but it would be interesting to know if there were other (maybe more covert) ways of targeting that audience.
- This chapter pulls together the evidence produced throughout the book, questioning whether processes were democratic: was there a clear British graphic style that is identifiable, and did the government impose any of that? Can the posters be identified as having had any effect? Posters were not produced in a cultural vacuum: they, as Huxley termed it in the 1930s, needed to canalise ‘a pre-existing stream’. The posters have continued to play into British culture: 70+ years after the Second World War, there is still a huge amount of historical interest in all aspects of the conflict, with First World War remembrances increasing interest in conflicts of all kinds. Why do Second World War posters continue to speak to contemporary audiences? In a digital age when people can have many identities, why do these ephemeral pieces of paper still speak to us? Images have been recycled and subverted in various ways. Postcards and canvases of posters are sold in museum shops. In particular, we return to ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, printed and distributed in 1939, but never officially displayed, as it was kept in reserve for times of invasion, but deemed not fit for purpose by that point. How has this poster become a message of the 21st Century, aligned to the economic crisis, globalisation, celebrity culture and the growth of the Internet (and internet memes) to spread its story?
- Nostalgia - clearly the world as a whole post ££ issues = looking back to ‘happier times’… (we all drunk tea) – something that can be shared – which in the digital age is particularly key (memes developing from 1970s when video mashups became popular – Duffet, p11) – in both the popularity of its take-up, it’s adaptation, and the repeated calls that ‘enough is enough’ (but it persists). The variations produced are not socially atomised, because there is a variation on a meme, and then a counter-variation … people will converse around different variations, but is it more a sense of ‘personal fandom’ – on Facebook – making a public declaration of interest (mine is pretty specific!)
- Celebrity clout given to the slogan by a range of people… travelled around the world – the US love it, and amazingly sells v well in Germany according to Barter books, and you can use a tool on the internet to create your own version!
- We question what people are actually a fan of – the British outlook, the wartime sympathies, the poster itself, or its story. It is interesting that in all this, despite having come across the poster in the 1990s in The National Archives & IWM, it was worth the ‘pilgrimage’ to Barter Books to see the specific ‘original’ (and I’m not the only one) – and also interesting to note that Stuart/Mary don’t like the variations (snobbery or …?)! So that’s where I’d finish the bulk of the book…
- The original plan was to add biographies to the book – but as much of my content is already here (and on my own website), and it bulks up the costs of the books, this is looking unlikely … Only a handful of graphic design artists achieved fame and are well known, but there is a large amount of information available and collated on the wartime artists, which is likely to be appreciated by design historians. The research is already online …. with some adapted for http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/theartofwar/artists/. http://drbexl.co.uk/academic/keep-calm-and-carry-on-and-other-second-world-war-posters-ww2poster/artists/
- Image issues – why looking at IWM/NA first, but also want some credibility to it – though debating e.g. Unbound (taking advantage of the digital).