Men at Work

Read more conference information.

Re-making Londoners: Models of a Healthy Society in the Nation’s Capital, 1918-1939

Centre for Metropolitan History: 13 November 2002

The creation of a healthy society was, perhaps, the dominant concern of social reformers in the first half of the twentieth century and many historians have considered the legislative processes through which such a society was produced. What have, hitherto, been little studied, are the locations in which the ideolgies of a healthy society were produced, especially in the inter-war decades. It is the aim of this workshop, using London as a case study, to investigate how social reformers developed particular models, practices and environments of reform in order to re-make London’s population into a race of healthy, active and educated citizens between the end of the Great War in 1918 and the declaration of the Second World War in September 1939.

Launch Event: Centre for the History of Women’s Education

King Alfred’s College: 7th June 2002

“The Centre provides a forum for research into the gendered nature of educational provision, practice and thought in order to provide a sound evidence base for policy and practice in respect of education for women and girls. The Centre takes a broad cultural definition of Education: one which transcends schooling to encompass learning and teaching (formal and informal) at any phase of the life-cycle, in any setting or historical period, including the recent past.”

I presented a short paper on ‘informal education’, the representation of men/women in VD posters.

War and The Media: The Changing Context of Reportage and Propaganda in The Twentieth Century

University of Kent @ Canterbury : 30th August – 4th September 2001

“This is the first major international conference on the impact of the media on war. Enormous social and technological changes have radically changed our lives over the past 150 years. The aim of the conference is to analyse how these developments have altered the relationships between politicians, the military and the media in the shaping of policies that may lead to conflict and the manner. The complex relationship between propaganda and censorship and the effect of the media on the formation of public opinion together with journalistic ethics and motives are also probed.”

Associated Publication: Connelly, M., & Welch, D. (eds), War and the Media: Reportage and Propaganda, I.B. Tauris, 2004

Health Promotion in Historical Context

Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, UEA, 27th – 28th April 2001

Presentations Included:

• ‘Statistical Images of Diseases in Health Exhibitions in Britain in the 1930s’
• ‘”No One Receiving?’ The Audience for Health Education Films, 1919-48′
• ‘Health Promotion and the Transformation of Chronic Diseases after the Second World War (1945-1955)’
• ‘The Cycle of Conflict, the Historic Development of the Public Health and Health Promotion Movements’

Aspects of Gender in Contemporary Britain

Institute of Contemporary British History, 10th-12th July, 2000

“The conference aims to bring together contemporary historians as well as researchersin related fields including cultural studies, sociology and social anthropology, to explore aspects of gender history which have been neglected in previous research.”

Anglo-American ‘War and Peace’

Institute of Historical Research, 5th-7th July, 2000 Seminars Attended: ‘Health and Education’; ‘Representing War’ ‘and ‘Cold War Culture’

Public History Now

Public History Group, Ruskin College, Oxford, 20th May, 2000

‘Nostalgia and the Visual Image: The memory of propaganda posters of the Second World War.’

ABSTRACT: This paper will explore the place that Second World War Home Front posters have in popular memory, with a particular focus upon the nostalgia industry that has grown up around them.

There are countless objects that can be purchased adorned with images and slogans from wartime posters: not only postcards and reproduction posters, but mugs, key rings, T-shirts, chocolate bars, playing cards, and many others. Money would not be spent producing such objects unless it was felt there was a market for them, and such objects have been produced by the Imperial War Museum and the Public Record Office, amongst others, for many years, in the knowledge that they will sell.

The paper will consider why such products do sell, with their appeal based not only upon their immediate visual impact, [Footnote 1] often the reason they were successful in the first place, but upon their status as social and historical documents, and as a reminder of a past, mythical or otherwise. Many people remember the posters from the war, as can be illustrated by replies received from a questionnaire distributed, in 1997-9, as part of the PhD project.

Posters often trigger memories, in particular causing people become nostalgic about, for instance, ‘the Blitz spirit’. This has largely been deemed a myth, [Footnote 2] and it will be interesting to consider how far such a ‘spirit’ was propagated through the war posters, and how far the posters have contributed to such a ‘myth’. Yet, memories of war posters are not restricted to those who can remember the war, people of all generations can list many war poster slogans, such as ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’. There are two probable factors which account for this: many slogans have become tied up with the mythology of war; and war posters are used extensively as illustration in both children’s and populist ‘coffee table’ books, where the poster is used to get across a point pictorially, as was the original purpose.

The paper will take into account the original purpose of propaganda and advertising posters, designed to be ephemeral, but also memorable. It will attempt to define what factors determine if a poster can be deemed a ‘success’, especially from a later point in time. The paper will also briefly reflect upon how changes in history have enabled the poster to be considered as a historical source.

1 Gleeson, J. Collecting Prints and Posters, 1997, p92
2 Calder, A. The Myth of the Blitz, 1991

With Gary Peatling ‘Appeasement and public history now and in the future’.

The day was interesting and well attended, with a very friendly atmosphere.

The Paper Presented

Paper Given: Public History, May 2000

A 20 minute paper was presented at Ruskin College in Oxford. More image links may be added at a later date!

WHAT IS THE POSTER NOSTALGIA INDUSTRY?
Memorabilia, objects that remind people of memorable times, people and events [1], form a major nostalgia industry. There is a widespread nostalgia industry around posters, and following are some examples of material produced by the Imperial War Museum:

Reproduction posters/postcards, etc. [Slide]; Playing cards [Slide]; Mugs [Slide]; Keyrings [Slide] Jigsaws [Slide] Chocolate bars, etc. [Slides]

Among others places that sell reproduction poster items are the Public Record Office: Diary pages, where posters are shown alongside other items such as the Magna Carta. [Show], the Robert Opie Museum of Advertising & Packaging and the Past Times shop: T-shirts [Show].

Last year I found a leaflet aimed at pensioners who needed a ‘flu vaccination, which utilised a comical ‘Coughs and Sneezes’ poster, originally used during the war, (We’ll see an example later) and it was obviously expected that such an image would ‘ring bells’ with the ‘target market’.

The leaflet for ‘The Art of Propaganda’ study day at Duxford used a Fougasse cartoon poster from the Second World War [show] – out of all the images they could have used, this was the one that they felt would attract people to the event.

‘Popular’ books related to the war are often heavily illustrated with posters and advertisements, and front covers of books often use poster images as they are expected to attract attention in the way that they originally did. Clark used one of the most popular posters people remember from the war: ‘Women of Britain’.

Such items would not be produced unless it was felt that there was a market for them, so we need to question what it is that attracts people to such items, when posters were surely intended as fleeting, ephemeral objects. Not sure we can answer that in 20-odd minutes, but will try & raise some issues for discussion.

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WHAT IS NOSTALGIA?
But first we need to define nostalgia. Chase and Shaw defined three prerequisites for the presence of nostalgia in a society: a linear and secular view of time and history (as in Western societies); a sense that the present is deficient; and the presence of items from the past [2]. So, how do we define nostalgia? The Oxford English Dictionary Online defined nostalgia in the 18^th and 19^th centuries as

“A form of melancholia caused by prolonged absence from one’s home or country; severe home-sickness.”,

a precursor of the definition which has become more familiar since the 1920s:

“Regret or sorrowful longing for the conditions of a past age; regretful or wistful memory or recall of an earlier time.”[3] or

“A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.” [4]

But whatever definition you take, the key is that time and distance safely separate us from the ‘facts’, it is the ‘ROSE TINTED’ view of the ‘GOOD OLD TIMES’. A recent newspaper article (produced online), described the recent Channel 4 programme in which a British family lived life in a Victorian style for 3 months. They aptly summed up nostalgia as “memory’s cataracts – clouding our vision and causing us to see things that were never there.”[5] They described living the real life as a ‘cure’ for the longings for the ‘good old days’.

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ARE POSTERS STILL REMEMBERED?
In early 1998 I circulated a questionnaire and one gentleman claimed that wartime posters “were always in the background to one’s thinking.”[6] Wartime posters were designed to meet the need of the moment, but the slogans and images have lasted in people’s memories. The posters appear to have outlived their original purpose, and have become reminders of wartime events, in particular of the ‘Blitz spirit’, where the idea that ‘a cup of tea will solve it all’ has often become prevalent. However, when I gave a talk at the ’1940s Society’, one lady said that she only recognised 2-3 posters out of the 60-odd images which I showed them, and my grandfather, born about 1918, and worked in the farming industry during the war said:

“My mind was on other things in those days, indeed there was little time, or inclination to take much interest in anything but survival. … Perhaps the fact of having no real memory of war time politics may even tell its own story.” [7]

So we have to question whether people are remembering the actual posters they saw during the war, or simply the ones which have been popularised since the war. As a respondent told me in early 1998 when I circulated a questionnaire:

“… it is difficult to disentangle genuine memories from those enhanced by reproduced images generating an “Oh! I remember that” reaction.” [8]

as they had had so much retrospective exposure. But this really sends us around in a circle, as we still have to question why they have been popularised since the war.

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WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF A POSTER?
We need to think about the ORIGINAL purpose of a poster: All advertisements are designed to arouse a response in us, and posters were intended to give immediate visual impact, to be short, sharp and memorable. They are a form of propaganda, which we can define as:

“The systematic propagation of information or ideas by an interested party, especially in a tendentious (prejudiced) way in order to encourage or instil a particular attitude or response.” [9]

People who responded to my questionnaire often seemed to have a better recollection of the slogans than the posters themselves. Slogans such as ‘Coughs
& Sneezes Spread diseases‘ were one-liners intended to attract the attention of the public to an issue, in this case ‘careless talk’. We have to remember that individual posters were not produced in a vacuum, but were often part of a series, indeed, part of a wider campaign with newspapers, radio & film all echoing the same message. Of these, the visual images used in posters are the most easily memorised: we tend to remember more of what we see than what we hear (and even more of what we do)!

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POSTERS AS A REMINDER OF THE PAST
Replies in questionnaires indicated that people remembered that posters often made them aware that they were all in it together, of the need to help each other, and not waste anything. The posters are a reminder of the past, mythical or otherwise. ‘Most old folks can remember a time when beer was cheaper … and people had more respect… Most of us remember odd patches of our lives with especial affection, sometimes patches that were not in themselves particularly pleasant.’ (Michael Wood, 1974) [10] Of even more interest is why people of younger generations also know of many of the posters, or poster slogans. As an example of that, I thought about why I started this project – I was born thirty years after the war ended, but I was taken to the Imperial War Museum by my mother about ten years ago, and the most interesting and memorable exhibit for me were the colourful war posters. When the opportunity arose for an individual project at history A-level, I decided to investigate the posters: they had attracted me had they had the same effect on people at the time? When I say what my project is, the most obvious, instantaneous response is “Oh, like ‘Your Country Needs You‘”, the most famous poster from the First World War, listed amongst the book The 100 best posters of the century by Campaign, [a poster production company]. Many also remember and collect the ‘My Goodness, My Guinness’ [Show] advertisements/posters from the war, a campaign which was started as the independent brewery needed to create such a demand for their product that non-independent pubs would have to stock their product. Government wartime slogans which also surface include ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives‘, ‘Dig for Victory‘, and ‘Keep mum, she’s not so dumb‘. It has been said that nostalgia involves a personal link with the past in question, although we do not know of the events of war, we are close enough to the war, and often to the people who WERE involved to feel ‘involved’ ourselves. There is a knowledge that if events had turned out differently in the past, our present would have been affected. [11] The Second World War is often seen as a defining point in history, the present had been seen as ‘post-war’, (although it is now possibly becoming post-millennial). The war itself has is perceived as a time when people pulled together, when there was not such a frenzy for material objects, more of a shared culture than a ‘me’ culture. As an example of this I found a magazine ‘Best of British’ yesterday about a couple, in their 30s, who have a passion for the 1940s. “It was a romantic period when people had time for one another” and “People didn’t have much but made the most of what they did have.”

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COMMON CULTURAL CONCEPTS IN POSTERS
Posters contain many ‘unconscious messages’; when planning a poster, the poster designer assumes “that the audience will understand the ad’s message because both communicator and receiver share a common culture or common frame of reference.” [12] Certain symbols and language are assumed to be shared, which they generally are, therefore we are able to read such ‘messages’. Any objects from the war are of interest, but the posters in particular reflect an idealised view of the past, containing selective, idealised ‘reality’ defining ‘this is how things should be/will be’. The idealised poster images presented are bound up with the general idealised mythology of the war.

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THE ROLE OF WOMEN DEPICTED IN POSTERS
For instance, women are generally believed to have taken on many new roles outside the home during the war. The posters demonstrate the conflict the Government had with this, initial posters emphasised the role of women in the home, later posters had to recognise the non-domestic roles that women took on, but very few recognised that most women now had a duel role. For instance, married/older women are often depicted as housewives [example], or carers for evacuees [example], whilst it is the younger, single women who are depicted as war workers [example]. Commercial advertisers seemed to recognised this duel role earlier, [example outside office], but post-war the images of women in their domestic spheres returned ‘I’m clocking in at home’ was one slogan. [13]

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THE USE OF POSTERS IN SCHOOLS
As mentioned earlier, my mother took me to the Imperial War Museum, and most children will have seen a war poster by the time they finish primary school. ‘The Home Front’ is often a popular ‘topic’, posters make for colourful illustrations, and they are something that children can have a go at designing themselves. The IWM produces several sets containing reproduction documents for use in schools. [Show] Posters produced by democratic Britain were fairly innocuous, they were not particularly offensive, nothing along the xenophobic lines of the ‘beast’ [show] poster produced by the Americans in the First World War, and are therefore perceived as acceptable for children to view.

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POSTER COLLECTIONS
Posters have been collected for many years: at the turn of the century there was a particular enthusiasm for the poster, and there was even a journal ‘The Poster’ produced for about 3 years. Posters were originally collected for their artistic worth, as described by Miller’s Collecting Guide:

“The value of these is largely dependent on the quality of the design and commercial appeal of the image. Good design will invariably hold its value, even if the poster is by an obscure or anonymous artist. Also popular are posters showing sports, vintage cars and fashionable figures, or those that reflect the mood of their times.” [14]

A lot of the value of a poster still attaches to the importance/fame of the artist, although by the inter-war years it was possible for an artist to be more famous for poster design than for other art work. But, just think, the Imperial War Museum houses its posters in ‘The Art Department’. Posters are now collected for their importance as historical documents, and this is due largely to the widened scope of history over recent decades.

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THE LEGITIMATISATION OF THE VISUAL SOURCE
Forty or fifty years ago a subject such as ‘posters’ would not have been considered valid for historical research. The popularising of ‘history from below’ in the 1960s, and the merging of history with other subjects, in particular the social sciences and anthropology, has widened the field of historical research greatly, and has thus widened the range of sources available. Although visual sources are much more prolific than written sources, the written word has tended to have a dominance as a historical source in a culture that caused Raphael Samuel to comment:

“History, in the hands of the professional historian, is apt to present itself as an esoteric form of knowledge. It fetishizes archive-based research…” [15]

However, visual sources are more prolific now than they ever were, with the Internet, etc. Marwick, in 1989, defined 12 ‘varieties’ of primary source, of which the 6^th is ‘media of communication and artefacts of popular culture.’ [16] Dependent upon the subject under investigation, every source has validity for historical study, provided that it is studied in context, and that the right questions, such as who produced it, why did they produce it, etc., are asked of it. The changing role of ephemeral objects must be taken into account, for instance, in the last decade the poster has taken on a new role as, for instance, a news opportunity for politicians, or a place to make the ‘dot.com’ name known.

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THE STUDY OF POSTERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES
Partly due to the way that posters have been collected over the years, posters have largely been used by historians, if at all, for illustrative purposes. There is a standard joke amongst my friends that I spend the day sat in Athena staring at posters, and a frequent reaction is ‘how can you write 75,000 words on PICTURE POSTERS?’ These comments at first seem amusing, but they reveal a deeper worry about the public perception of history and what it entails. The project does not study posters as ‘pretty pictures’ or graphic objects, but as historical objects. On the surface they can reveal ‘factual’ information about fashions, etc., but of far more interest is what they can reveal about, for instance, attitudes. As we saw with the earlier example about women, the Government faced conflict between its need to recruit women, and its desire for women to maintain roles in the home, and posters can reveal much about relations between the ‘advertiser’, in this case the state, and the ‘consumer’, in this case the general public. We can discover what the Government felt that the people needed to do, and if legislative measures are taken into consideration, we can determine how far the Government believed people would do what was asked, or whether they required firmer direction.

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THE SUCCESS OF A POSTER
I did say in my abstract that I would deal with the issue of how we determine ‘the success of a poster’, but this is something that is actually extremely difficult. If a campaign aimed to have 50,000 people digging up their allotments by a certain stage, the poster could be deemed a success if this happened, but the poster was unlikely to have been the only factor in a campaign, so we would need to determine what else was likely to have affected the outcome. Even more difficult is that many posters seemed determined to change attitudes, something which is incredibly hard to measure. Due to the lack of market research at the time, although records collected by Mass-Observation and Home Intelligence help in some ways, such facts are even more difficult to determine sixty-odd years on.

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CONCLUSION
In a western democratic culture there is a clear distinction between the past and the present, for many people the future seems uncertain, and they feel that there is a decline in participation in public life. Many people therefore feel isolated, and thinking of a time when people ‘drew together’ is bound to inspire nostalgia. Poster collections exist which serve as reminders of wartime experiences, and therefore Chase & Shaw’s three prerequisites have been met and help to explain the popularity of poster images in this day and age, but for the historian it is extremely important to bear in mind that we need to look beyond the surface images for what they can tell us about attitudes then and now.

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[1] OED Online ‘Memorabilia’ http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry_main/00143910?case_id+ooLh-HsDnDq-591 Accessed 11/04/00

[2] Shaw, M. & Chase, M., The Imagined Past, History and Nostalgia, 1989, p3

[3] OED Online: ‘Nostalgia’, http://dic…/00159815?case_id=ooLh-4S2LPB-589&p=1&d=1&sp=0&qt=1&ct=1&ad=1- Accessed 11/04/00

[4] ‘Dictionary.com/nostalgia’ http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=nostalgia Accessed 11/04/00

[5] Detroit Free Press ‘Mort Crim: Look back can be eye-opening’ http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/crim3_20000403.htm 3/04/00. Accessed 11/04/00 (they claimed it was BBC)

[6] Weeder, H., Reply to questionnaire, April, 1998

[7] Letter from R.G. Cross (my grandfather), 21/4/98.

[8] Metcalfe, C., Response to questionnaire, April 1998

[9] Oxford University Dictionary, unknown date.

[10] Lowenthal, D., ‘Nostalgia tells it like it wasn’t’ in Shaw, M. & Chase, M. The Imagined Past, History and Nostalgia 1989, p 19

[11] Shaw, M. & Chase, M., The Imagined Past, History and Nostalgia 1989, p 2

[12] Dyer, G., Advertising as Communication 1982, p13

[13] Dyer, G., Advertising as Communication, 1982, p52

[14] Gleeson, J., Collecting Prints & Posters, 1997, p93

[15] Samuel, R., Theatres of Memory 1994, p3

[16] Marwick, A., Nature of History, p209. 3rd Ed.

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After a paper by Gary Peatling, we then had a discussion about some of the questions raised about public history.

World War II Propaganda Posters and the Image of Britain

Research Day: National Identities
King Alfred’s, Winchester, September 21st, 1999

This was a very successful, well attended event. Short papers were given by a student and tutor from each research centre on the common theme of national identities.

The day included a paper given by myself, entitled ‘World War II Propaganda and the Image of Britain’. Once a brief definition of propaganda and the job of the poster had been established, three posters from the First World War were considered, demonstrating the belief that most appealed to either a mythical past, a sense of good sportsmanship, or obedience to a sense of authority. The Second World War was even more of a ‘total war’ than the First had been, and those involved needed to know that they were not only fighting AGAINST something, but also FOR it. The main focus of the paper was then upon two posters ‘Your Britain, Fight for it Now’, produced in 1942, around the time of the Beveridge Report. On the one hand we saw the nostalgic image, depicted by Frank Newbould, of a pastoral and rural Britain, which encourages effort in order to maintain perceived past traditions, whilst Abram Games depicted an urban image as an image of change for a better Britain, a real fight for the future.

This paper was presented as part of a research day at King Alfred’s College concerning national identities. I was the only postgraduate from the department to present a paper, and was made aware of the 20 minute deadline by the cooking timer ticking away!

Defining Propaganda:
This is a definition in progress: “the attempt to influence opinions and attitudes, or to reinforce existing ideas and beliefs, through suggestion and persuasion, rather than by physical or financial inducement.” (p.8, Undergraduate thesis)

Posters needed to be recognised as an important form of propaganda, although by World War II their importance was rather overshadowed by radio, cinema, etc. However, there is more of an element of choice in these, as it is easier to turn the radio off/not buy a cinema ticket, than to avoid a (large) poster.

Defining the Purpose of a Poster

• Intended to be assimilated quickly from a distance
• Demonstrate attitudes of those who produced them
• Give some clues about those who perceived them.

It is generally agreed that there should not be too much information in any one post, as most posters need to be read at speed, although some, at bus stops, etc. can have more information on them, as people are more at leisure to take in more complex ideas, although must still be emphasised that should not be TOO complex.

Poster design is important, although even if it is controversial it may be a successful poster, as it may have caused the message to be absorbed more than a conventional design would. The images and slogans used give us clues about the attitudes of those who produced the posters, in this case the government, towards those they were targeting, in this case the general public at war, which can give us clues about those who perceived the posters.

First World War Posters:
Although the project is focused upon Second World War posters, it can prove useful to consider posters produced by the govt. in the First World War, and see if there are any discernible changes in attitude towards those that they governed, and see what they considered people needed to hear. First World War posters were largely concerned with recruitment and give the general impression that the general idea appears to be that the war was a great, heroic, ‘sports match’ in which soldiers were ‘players’ were on opposing ‘teams’. Several posters were based upon the mythical past of England, such as a poster which depicted George & the Dragon, which equated soldiers with the knights & heroes of the past.

Kitchener Poster
I think you could say that this was the most famous poster of all time, at least in Britain. It illustrates the opinion held by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, who published the poster, that the masses, if ordered, would follow a hero of past wars into battle.

Second World War Posters:
These posters appear to have been both more pragmatic & more ideological, and tended to depict the ‘ordinary person’, such as ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’ which depicts the ‘ordinary soldier’ appealing to his fellow men/women – this did not constitute an order.

Second World War recruits were not professional soldiers, they were ordinary citizens who needed to know that they were not only fighting AGAINST something, but also FOR something. Those on the home front, most of whom were the families of such soldiers, were no different, and the Beveridge Report, which formed the basis of the Welfare State when produced in December, 1942, was greeted with great enthusiasm.

The Beveridge Report, 1942
The Beveridge Report, 1942 had ambitious proposals:

• Free National Health Service
• Policies of full employment
• Family allowances for all children
• Comprehensive social insurance, leading to the abolition of poverty

The reforms proposed in the Beveridge Report, including those listed here, were much wider than originally intended when enquiries were begun in 1941, when small changes were intended to keep the unions happy. The publication of the report was in fact postponed [from October] as it was felt to be too revolutionary, but once published, it was widely publicised by the Ministry of Information, the lead government department for propaganda on the home front, responsible for MOST home front posters, although not all.

The Beveridge Report was published in atmosphere of optimism, soon after the battle of Alamein, which was seen by many as a turning point in the war, and the report was widely regarded as a blueprint for post-war reconstruction, although there were widespread fears that the ideas would not be implemented, particularly after the fiasco after the First World War with the non-appearance of ‘Homes for Heroes’. It was also probably partly due to views that Churchill’s expressed that he didn’t want to give people false hopes and expectations, and that the country needed to concentrate upon the present, otherwise there would be no future.

Your Britain, Fight for it Now
A series of posters entitled YOUR BRITAIN, FIGHT FOR IT NOW, was produced by Army Bureau of Current Affairs, which was charged with educating the soldiers on the front line, some reflected some of the ideas in the Beveridge Report.

Weight claims that ABCA was generally believed to have been staffed by leftist intelligentsia, who highlighted the failures of conservatism, whilst spreading ideas of a ‘new Jerusalem’, and this poster by Abram Games certainly seems to reflect that, presenting an optimisitc, radical view. In fact, Churchill felt that this depiction of the child with rickets was such a slur on pre-war Conservative policies, that he managed to get this particular poster withdrawn. The image is an optimistic vision of the urban future. Urban areas are often regarded as the bastion of civilisation, as their formation had made the collective emancipation from a feudal lifestyle possible. Immigrants often make up a large proportion of town populations, of a less fixed culture, their influence can be felt in making people more open to new ideas, with more hope for the future. There are also many public meeting places in urban areas, and these are where socialistic ideas tend to make the most imprint.

Beveridge named ‘5 giants’ in his report: “Idleness, Want, Squalor, Ignorance and Disease’, and the background image depicts squalor, and names ‘Disease’ and ‘Neglect’. The image would have been even more familiar to people, as the blitz caused such devastation of homes. This dereliction, however, allowed THE FUTURE to be placed as a clean slate over a bad past. The image ignores the reality of the dirt that would inevitably collect, and does not really measure up to the jaundiced view that we now hold of such architecture. In the same series was this image, a more conservative view, presented by Frank Newbould.

Frank Newbould’s view of the Sussex Downs depicts a rural, pastoral idyll. Bunce claims that the image demonstrates a defence of the traditions of old orders, and denied the reality that those whom this poster was aimed at, the soldiers abroad, came from. However, although most people were urban dwellers, most would have associated with the image of ‘England’s green and pleasant land’. In times of social tensions, when there is a fear of the future, we tend to return to the rural idyll: the countryside image that is associated with fresh air; moral purity; the good life and wholesomeness. It shows stability in a time of conflict, showing the ‘everlasting’ links between man and his territory, and harks back to a nostalgic, simpler age, without the pressures of modern day life. Short sums it up: “It has become the perfect past to the imperfect present and uncertain future.” Its aesthetic beauty is shown in the ‘picture postcard’ timeless village, unaffected by war, bathed in sunlight, the shepherd wandering along with his flocks, whilst nature does the hard work. The image is unconnected with the real back-breaking work of the countryside, and similar images were also used in several other posters, including ‘We could do with thousands more like you‘, and ‘Lend a hand on the land‘, with the consequence that the wrong type of applicant was attracted to the work. Particularly the idea of a ‘farming holiday camp’ attracted those who believed that they had come to the country for a picnic. E.g. There were stories of women turning up in heels, which demonstrates the often misunderstood image of rural life that urban dwellers can often have. [They appreciate the beauty, but not the work]

CONCLUSION:
These posters, both produced in 1942, present two very differing images of Britain. On the one hand we see the presentation of the nostalgic & pastoral image of rural Britain, encouraging effort to maintain past traditions. On the other hand we have the urban image presented as an image of change for a better Britain, a real fight for the future. Neither image is based entirely on reality, but propaganda tends very rarely to present the whole truth, and in this case citizens were to be encouraged to fight for their utopias.x}

The Art of Propaganda

Duxford, IWM, 5th June, 1999

An interesting day through which four presentations were given on the subjects of propaganda as shown through film, posters , Nazi radio, and black propaganda.