MEN AT WORK: IN/VISIBLE MEN IN SECOND WORLD WAR POSTERS

Dr Bex Lewishttp://www.ww2poster.co.ukhttp://www.twitter.com/ww2poster

http://www.flickr.com/groups/keepcalm/pool/

Appropriate?

http://ww2poster.wordpress.com

The Poster: Susan Sontag 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.

The Ministry of Information

• 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’.

Masculinity/Femininity

“Nationality, in the last resort, is tested by fighting. A man’s nation is the nation for which he will fight. His nationality is the expression of his ultimate allegiance.”

“One of the essential differences of function is that between fighting on the one hand, and the creation and preservation of life on the other.”

Ulster Unionist MP Enoch Powell, 1981

With Women

The Factories

The Fighting Front

In the Countryside

Posters did not stand alone Legislation Newspapers Radio Cinema Leaflets Window Displays

H.M. Bateman: The Man Who...

http://www.antiqueprintshop.co.uk/humorous.htm

Questionnaire ResponseThe 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.

Venereal Disease

Thank you for your time.

QUESTIONS?