My hope is that when looking at all political advertising especially, be a critic and criticize it.
The few ads that will be discussed will be those from World War II (WWII). This time period will be the first of the different periods to be discussed because this was a time in which political propaganda in advertising was perfected. Before the United States entered the war in Europe the making of political ads were in the process and getting ready for disseminating. The War Finance Committee and War Advertising counsel took on the task of selling government policy to the American people. They entered the arena of trying to get the American public through ploys like buying war bonds, rationing things, joining the military, through cartoon and the even used African Americans in these ads to increase their enlistment. I will discuss a few of the advertisements that I thought deserved the most attention. The first advertisement is of an American flag with a white and black man working on some machinery together with the words, "United We Win." I should remind you that this advertisement is from the 1940's. Saying that, in the 1940's Blacks were usually never put in advertising and when they were it would be in an Aunt Jemima or servant type of role. This advertisement was a clever maneuver by the government to get blacks involved in the war effort through wars bonds and especially military service. What I feel is mostly propagated in this advertisement are the words, "United We Win." This can be concluded because in the 1940's America was still not the country that lived up to its liberal creed. At this time 1/3 of the United States had policies that restricted the freedom of blacks and most of the other state had similar rules, just unwritten. It sure is interesting how the advertisement talks about being "united" in a country that hates this black mans guts. This is one of the biggest propaganda tricks of all I think because; they got the blacks to literally help out the same people and institution that was oppressing them at the same time.
