Museum on Main Street

Produce for Victory   "Produce for Victory" toured five Nebraska communities in 1996   In 1996 the Nebraska Humanities Council (NHC) brought the MOMS exhibit “Produce for Victory: The American Homefront 1941-1945” to Nebraska for a statewide tour of five communities. Geneva Public Library (May 5-24, 1996) Fairmont Fillmore County Historical Society (May 27-June 21, 1996) Auburn Nemaha Valley Museum (July 1-August 9, 1996) Cozad 100th Meridian Museum (August 19-September 17, 1996) Harrisburg Banner County Historical Society (September 25-November 6, 1996) 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 are 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 accompany 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. To visit the MOMS website, click here The "Produce for Victory" webpage is here   top

For more information, contact the Nebraska Humanities Council. Phone 402-474-2131 or e-mail nhc@nebraskahumanities.org

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