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Produce for Victory: Posters on the American Home Front, 1941-1945 retired on April 10, 2007 after 13 successful years on tour. The exhibition, which debuted in September 1994, visited 128 venues in 23 states. Please visit our Partners page to review a list of past Produce for Victory hosts.
 Summary
World War II posters helped mobilize
a nation. Inexpensive, accessible, and ever-present, the poster
was an ideal agent for making war aims the personal mission of every
American. Government agencies, businesses, and private organizations
issued an array of poster images linking the military front with
the home front — calling upon every citizen to boost production
at work and at home. Twenty-six of the Smithsonian ’s best
wartime posters were reproduced in Produce for Victory, organized
by the National Museum of American History and curated by Harry
Rubenstein and Larry Bird. Collected by the Smithsonian ’s
curator of graphic arts during World War II, these images accompanied
photographs and original objects to tell the story of an America
mobilizing its human and natural resources for the war overseas.
Addressing every citizen as a combatant in a war of production,
wartime posters united the power of art with the power of advertising
to sell the idea that the factory and the home were also arenas
of war. Poster campaigns aimed not only to increase productivity
in factories, but also to enlarge people ’s views of their
responsibilities in a time of total war. Family and home, the cornerstones
of democracy, were depicted as being directly threatened by the
armies of the Axis powers. Many of the posters proposed an idealized
post-war America, where everyone would own a home, buy goods, and
raise families in safe, secure neighborhoods — an image that
is still potent today.
 State
humanities councils played an important role in supporting locally
produced programs and activities that augmented Produce for Victory.
They helped small town museums present provocative educational events
centering on local heritage. Rural communities responded with
an astonishing array of programs from oral history projects, school
essay and poster contests, USO re-creations, scrap drives, victory
gardens, and even Rosie the Riveter look-alike contests. These enjoyable
and educational events are central to every Museum on Main Street
exhibition experience and are expressly designed to showcase local
heritage.
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