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Posters and Propaganda
 Propaganda
is information used to persuade a group
of people or to promote a cause or idea.
It has always been crucial during periods
of war. During the Second World War the
Wartime Information Board was responsible
for bringing news about the war to Canadians.
Public opinion polling techniques were used
to determine information strategies and
government employees, private sector companies
and individuals generated poster artwork,
text, and film to keep citizens up to date
on issues of the home front and abroad.
Posters became an especially effective means
of communication as they could be produced
at low cost, printed in an array of sizes
and displayed almost anywhere. They were
seen on billboards, in shop windows, theatres,
buses, streetcars, workplaces, even matchbox
covers, and produced in varying quantities
from a few hundred to tens of thousands.
Designers of posters included anonymous
graphic artists as well as noted Canadian
painters like Group of Seven member, A.J.
Casson. In the United States, the well
known illustrator, Norman Rockwell
made a series of four paintings illustrating
the "Four Freedoms" that were
widely reproduced and collected. Many of
the posters drew upon the styles of advertising
and commercial art that were popular at
the time using realistic renderings of people
and settings. Others were more stylized
with geometric motifs of European art movements
like Cubism. The design vocabulary of many
poster artists was influenced by artists,
architects, and designers who left Europe
at the outbreak of war for North America.
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  On
the home front, the war effort included
production of weapons, airplanes, food and
other materials with over one million Canadian
men and women employed in war industries.
Posters helped to mobilize the workforce
and promote a common purpose. And as in
the First World War, posters were used to
sell Victory Bonds and War Savings Stamps.
The cash sale of Victory Bonds during the
Second World War totalled billions of dollars
and owed largely to poster campaigns. Financial
support of the war and calls for increased
production and labour were important messages
conveyed by propaganda posters. Canadians
responded and their efforts contributed
to winning the war for the country and its
allies.
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