World War II Propaganda in the United States of America
By: Travis Weninger
Tags: World War II, Propaganda, Owi, Fdr, United States

Propaganda is a tool that is thought of to be associated with totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, The Soviet Union, and The People’s Republic of China. By its nature, propaganda is profoundly undemocratic. However, in the circumstances of a world war the negative connotations of propaganda didn’t stop it from being adopted by a country that is imagined to be the champions of democracy around the world, The United States of America. Before America’s military entry into World War II Franklin D. Roosevelt created various public relations agencies within the US government that’s chief goals were shaping public opinion about the war and America’s military involvement. Upon America’s entry into the war in 1941 all of these agencies were consolidated into one called The Office of War Information. From a variety of actors, sources, and mediums, propaganda before and during America’s military involvement in World War II was instrumental in shaping public opinion.

To understand the utility of propaganda in America one must look even earlier than the outbreak of WW II. During WW I the British were the first to demonstrate the usefulness of propaganda in supporting the war effort by using persuasive and suggestive posters that were aimed at the general public. The British government didn’t continue to use propaganda during peacetime, but they greatly inspired an Austrian-American public relations/advertising expert named Edward Bernays. Bernays took up the task in exploring propaganda and creating public support for American style democracy in the books Crystallizing Public Opinion, and Propaganda. He argued that the publics opinions must be engineered from above by an intelligent minority. Bernays’s first successful experiment in propaganda was in New York’s 1929 Easter Parade where he convinced women to start smoking cigarettes that he referred to as “a torch of freedom.” By placing models in the parade that were smoking Bernays was able to lead people to believe that women smoking was a glamourous and liberating act rather than something that was associated with prostitution. Walter Lippmann was another figure in the 1920s to introduce new ideas about propaganda such as, “Manufactured Consent.” In 1936, the US Department of State conducted a study on the effectiveness of Axis propaganda, Roosevelt gave no conclusive statement on the success of the study but the proposal of creating a propaganda agency in the US had support from the Secretary of War Henry Simons and Vice President Henry Wallace.

In 1937 President Roosevelt was on a mission to expand the availability of public information on activities the federal government was involved in. Roosevelt appointed Lowell Mellett to the head of an emergency council to complete this task. Mellett appointed a former journalist Robert Horton to become the chief of The Maritime Commission’s Section of Information. Horton was tasked with promoting widely held values, national historical legacy, patriotism, a high quality of American seamanship, and the consequences of falling behind other nations in this field. The Maritime Commission communicated directly with the press and distributed dumbed down press releases for members of the public that weren’t avid readers. During this time the US Government had a ban on propaganda but there was one loophole that stated the president was allowed to communicate publicly. Since the Maritime Commission was part of the executive branch it fell under the category of presidential communication. At the Maritime Commission Horton was able to test and perfect the strategies he would later deploy at The Division of Information (DOI) making use of various mediums of communication.

The Division of Information (DOI) was an agency that specialized in media relations, public reporting, film, publications, exhibits, and campaigns. Although the DOI can be thought of as a public relations agency, the term was unpopular in the federal government as it carried connotations associated with deceptiveness, manipulation, and propaganda. Roosevelt put the division to work during his reelection campaign in 1940 using the agency to assist with speeches, photo ops, and short films. Roosevelt was re-elected but many political fears were still present with World War II raging in Europe. The US was still a non-combatant and the official message that was being communicated by Roosevelt and the DOI was still leading the public to be against US Military involvement. In Roosevelt’s re-election campaign he promised the American people that he wouldn’t send American boys to fight in a foreign war. Despite that promise, after his reelection Roosevelt began making it increasingly clear that Hitler was the enemy and a threat to democracy through his Sunday night radio fireside chats.

FDR during one of his famous fireside chats

In this period before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Horton was under the impression that the US would not be going to war and began focusing the DOI on promoting national defense. The DOI continued working on press relations even strategically timing different releases for morning and afternoon papers as to not give one outlet an advantage over the other. The DOI was an open line of communication for the government and press. If Roosevelt wanted to enter the war, he still needed to convince the American people that it was a war worth fighting. Opinion polls showed that a majority of Americans were sympathetic to Britain’s cause and were in favor of giving the British extensive aid but still 80% did not want to enter the war. In December of 1940, the DOI’s tone started to change from one that was purely informative to one that was swayed towards persuasion. This occurred when a consultant to the production effort went on talk radio and made an assertion that if the Allies lost control of the seas, the Axis would control the raw materials that were needed to win the war.

The DOI began making documentary films like The Power of Defence and Men and Ships with the goal of justifying to the public the need for increased defense production. These 10-minute films were viewed by approximately 70 million people via cinema, schools, and television. The DOI then began creating posters with the goal of raising the morale of the people that were involved in the production effort. These posters were highly persuasive containing slogans like “Let’s Go!” and “Let’s work together to build that GREAT ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY in record time.” By 1941 Roosevelt recreated the DOI as an independent agency relieving it and Horton from any control by outside agencies. In the spring of 1941, the DOI changed its tone again to sell the public on the idea of increasing subcontracting defense production. Horton thought up three points that the public must be informed of. “The Nation must arm for defence”, “we must know what we are defending”, and “the part played by each citizen must be made clear.” All of this work being done to promote a war effort for a country that was not currently at war climaxed with “The New Victory Program.” This program ran under the slogan “Pots to planes” and was the first public salvage campaign in which citizens turned in aluminum goods to be converted into airplane parts. Horton even reached out to Walt Disney to assist with the program and suggested that Disney alter a Donald Duck cartoon to illustrate him training as an air raid warden instead of playing poker in the evenings.

DOI poster encouraging American production

It is important to note that up until America became a combatant in WW II many American corporations were doing business with Nazi Germany under subsidiaries. Companies like IBM, Ford, GM, Kodak, and Dupont were making millions of dollars off of contracts with the nationalist socialist state. These contracts provided the Nazis with tabulation machines that were used to keep track of prisoners in concentration camps, trucks for the army and air force, oil, chemicals, and photographic equipment. The Nazis even went as far as awarding American executives like Henry Ford of Ford Motor Company, James Mooney of General Motors, and Thomas J. Watson of IBM with the Grand Cross. The Grand Cross was the highest honor Nazis awarded to foreigners. These contracts provided jobs for Americans and lined the pockets of shareholders while ignoring political and ethical concerns.

A tabulation machine used by the Nazis, produced and sold by IBM

On December 7th, 1941, America was attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. This attack was a turning point in America’s decision to enter WW II and intensified the public’s suspicions towards Japanese people. America declared war on Japan on December 8th and Germany on December 11th. The American columnist Walter Lippmann added fuel to the fire by warning the public that “The Pacific Coast is in imminent danger of a combined attack from within and without.” Seven days later Roosevelt began prescribing military areas within the US in which people could be excluded from, this later lead to the internment of over 120,000 Japanese people. America entering WW II soothed the publics anxiety over the economy signaling an end to the great depression due to the need for manpower and production that would be required in the defense industry. Political anxiety was also reduced by creating pride in America’s industrial might removing some of that power from the large corporations that were producing and selling goods to the Germans and their allies.

In 1942, Roosevelt consolidated all agencies that dealt with public information like the DOI and Maritime Commission into one called the Office of War Information (OWI). The creation of the OWI was done with executive order 9182 and specified that government communication should inform the public of the advocacy of US foreign policy and war effort. The OWI was given permission to use the press, radio, film, and other mediums to communicate to the people of America the mission, status updates, and activities of the war effort. The OWI was chiefly an at home agency whose target was the civilian population of America, but they also were given the mission of engaging in psychological warfare. The OWI created leaflets for tactical purposes to be dropped behind enemy lines that created the impression America was in the process of creating the greatest war machine known to man.

One of the OWI’s main areas of focus to create propaganda was America’s film industry. The OWI worked closely with Hollywood to produce films that reflected the allied mission and championed America’s spirit of democracy. Expert filmmakers in Hollywood viewed cinema as a form of cultural intelligence that was instrumental in shaping public opinion. They were able to create films that aided the war effort subconsciously but were also able to make highly effective instructional videos for soldiers in training. Roosevelt had such a favorable opinion of Hollywood that he declared it an essential industry throughout the war. The OWI also promised to protect Hollywood’s interests to any extent it could under war conditions. Hollywood even leant out celebrity star power to help sell war bonds through ads, rallies, and live shows. In May of 1942, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) got involved with this mission by taking on 13 contracts to analyze Nazi propaganda. The findings of the study helped Hollywood hone their propaganda production skills.

Hollywood film director Frank Capra was a key contributor to the OWI’s cinematic effort after he was commissioned to create the seven-part documentary series Why We Fight. These films received large production budgets from the OWI with the goal of boosting morale and encouraging people to follow their military responsibilities. Divide and Conquer was one of the films in the series that was released in 1943 and told story of Germany’s subjugation of Western Europe with the invasion of Denmark that lead all the way to France. This film was a 32-minute epic that made use of high-quality sound effects and Beethoven’s 7th symphony. The film ended with shots of Belgian refugees and was successful in showing the viewer the threat that the Nazis posed.

Opening title for Frank Capra’s Why We Fight

Founded in 1936 by Henry Luce, Life Magazine was one of the most accessible ways Americans saw images of WW II at home. Life became so popular during the war that its circulation multiplied many times over with tens of millions of civilian readers and 2/3 of the military consuming the publication. The images that were viewed in Life Magazine had the power of immediacy and reinforced a shared experience of the American people. What was shown in the magazine was important but what wasn’t shown is just as notable. Readers received a highly sanitized version of the realities of war. With little exceptions images that contained American dead, American’s treating enemy dead with contempt, American’s loosing psychological control, and intense gore were censored or held back under the instruction of the Military. When Life did decide to show photographs of dead American soldiers it was done with the aim of driving the message home to keep producing munitions. Pictures of dead American soldiers were always comforting ones that sought to memorialize dead and not show the viewer the horrors of the battlefield. In some cases, US Military Censors would white out the faces of injured soldiers but sometimes these images would slip through the cracks unaltered.

Life Magazine 1944

WW II helped jump start the career of beloved cartoonist Dr. Seuss, although not by illustrating children’s books but by creating anti-Japanese propaganda. One of Seuss’s first controversial illustrations appeared in the PM newspaper that showed Hitler and Prime Minister Tojo of Japan on opposite sides of a large world atlas trying to push it closed with a person labeled “you” stuck in the middle. The illustration was titled “Awkward Predicament… For you to Solve” suggesting that Germany and Japan were out for world domination and that the viewer needed to do something about it. While living on the West Coast Seuss was influenced by anti-Japanese hysteria with it becoming quite prevalent in his comics. Seuss stereotyped the Japanese by illustrating them to look like monkeys wearing eyeglasses hellbent on destroying America, in effect justifying their internment. A strong example of this is a cartoon from February of 1942 that shows Japanese men lined up from California to Washington waiting to pick up TNT from the “Honorable 5h Column” while a man stands on top of a hut with a telescope “Waiting for the signal from home.” There are many examples of anti-Japanese cartoons like this from Dr. Seuss which makes the fact that he was sympathetic in representing the German people in his comics unsettling. Throughout his career at PM Dr. Seuss published over 400 cartoons.

Posters and advertising within America were key strategies for the OWI in communicating to the public what was needed of them to support the war effort. For the most part these posters focused on sending a message of increasing production, rationing resources, not participating in careless talk, and buying war bonds. One agency in particular was set up in 1940 called The Committee of Food Habits (CFH) that’s goal was promoting nutritious diets and keeping up morale during food shortages and rations. The CFH created various posters like one that instructed people on how to shop with war ration books. Other posters from the Office for Emergency Management under the OWI encouraged women to apply for the U.S. Employment Service and get to work producing munitions doing the job men that went to fight the war left behind.

The message of conservation was one of the strongest to permeate throughout OWI posters. Posters associated consuming too much gasoline with wounded soldiers on the battlefield, one went as far as to show a torpedoed oil tanker asking, “Should brave men die so you can drive?”. Drivers were encouraged to change their habits by joining car sharing clubs to reduce all unnecessary solo travel with one poster stating that “When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler.” People were told that they needed to make the cars they had last through the entirety of the war because resources that were needed for new cars and replacement parts were essential to America’s victory. Throughout America’s military involvement in WW II a shortage of rubber was a consistent problem, to address this issue rubber was rationed and a national speed limit of thirty-five miles an hour was put into effect by the Office of Defence Transportation. Along with rationing of gasoline these actions generated a lot of opposition to the necessity of this measure, it was the OWI’s job to create more posters to justify this effort.

OWI Propaganda to encourage car sharing

The famous American painter Norman Rockwell was tasked by the OWI to create a series of four paintings called Four Freedoms that were meant to remind Americans of the freedoms they were fighting for. The four freedoms illustrated in the paintings were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The OWI had the paintings printed into inspirational posters producing over four million copies in only a few months.The paintings were also worked into a touring exhibition and recreated in newspapers contributing to nearly $133 million in sales for war bonds.

Before and during America’s military involvement in WW II American public opinion was coerced by agencies of the federal government under clear direction of President Roosevelt. These initiatives were successful in manufacturing consent for the war and promoting the war effort at home by reaching into film, radio, pop culture, the press, and the public sphere. The OWI’s tactic’s contributed to allied military victory in a way that other propaganda efforts had never done before. The OWI was dissolved after the war but Roosevelt’s successor Harry Truman passed the Smith-Mundt Act in 1948 which created America’s first peacetime propaganda agency. This act aimed to promote America abroad but quickly morphed in the 1950s during Truman’s “Campaign of Truth” to create propaganda that fought against the spread of international communism. Today we live in a world where truth in the media has become a subjective term on the left and right, and more than ever, it’s important to view information through a critical lens.