Propoganda posters - What are they good for?
Any historian will tell you that tanks, missiles, guns, and bullets only take an army so far.
When it comes to war, military heads and national leaders need other, more sophisticated weapons in order to make sure the people handling the artillery are doing so with a sense of willingness, purposefulness, and national pride.
Propaganda is one of the most effective tools when it comes to manufacturing broad consent.
In the 20th Century, with the development of mass-marketing and mass-distributing technologies, nations across the world found incredibly effective ways of using propaganda. What better way to do that, than with propaganda posters.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at how five of the most dominant countries of the 20th Century used propaganda posters to create social consensus, especially during wartime.
Propaganda posters the United Kingdom
Britons Wants You - Alfred Leete (1914)
Officially called ‘Lord Kitchener Wants You’, this poster was created by Alfred Leete in 1914, as a recruitment poster at the start of the First World War.
Kitchener, The British Secretary of State for War, points directly to the viewer, in a way that feels very personal.
The image was incredibly iconic, very effective (it may have driven as many as 1 million people into the Army, along with other propaganda posters), and has been imitated repeatedly by other nations.
With war affecting every part of life in Britain in 1941, this poster was aimed at getting women into the workplace, in order to keep the economy moving at a time when many men were off fighting.
The image reflects a similar Soviet propaganda style, with the woman presented as monolithic and exultant. And, as with Soviet propaganda, this poster was incredibly effective.
