In the United States of America war time propaganda posters took a different approach. Patriotism, a man’s sense of duty to his nation was a key motivator for the Americans of course, as it had been for the british, but rather than guilting the population into action, they hailed the current servicemen as heroes, romanticising the idea of going off to war. Several Government backed agencies were created during this time to help aid in the writing and distribution of propaganda. Two of the largest agencies involved were the Writers War Board and the United States Office of War Information. The Writers War Board handled the actual writing of propaganda and was made up of well known American writers.The United States Office of War Information had one major objective, which was to deliver propaganda wherever they could. This would later go on to included movies, radio broadcasts, and print poster designs. World War II marked the ending of widespread “stone lithography,” but the production of posters continued to increase despite now being in competition with radio and other forms of media print. The mass production “photo offset” method printing technique was created, an evolution of traditional lithography, which allowed for an increased level of consistent quality of image and increased speed. This process is ideal for high volume printing projects and involves etched metal plates created for each colour of the image which then transfer ink to rubber rollers that in turn apply the ink to paper. This is referred to as Offset printing as the ink is not applied directly to the paper. It is estimated that more than 200,000 poster designs were created in the USA alone during the second world war.

Arguably the well known example of American Propaganda was one of the earliest produced. Clearly influenced by Alfred Leete’s ‘Britons” poster (Fig. 3), James Montgomery Flagg’s iconic 1916 U.S Army recruitment poster (Fig. 5) was simple in composition and direct in its communication with the viewer. The increased scale and use of colour on the word “You” created emphasis on the key part the statement. This is particularly effective when coupled with the supporting illustration, a stern faced Uncle Sam, finger pointed at the viewer. Uncle Sam had become symbol of patriotism for the citizens of The United States. His morden form is the result of various revisions, from the work British cartoonists such as Sir John Tenniel and John Leech of the humour magazine Punch, and later refined by American caricaturists Thomas Nast and Joseph Keppler. However it was this piece of work by J.M Flagg, originally published on July 6, 1916 as the cover of U.S magazine “Leslie’s Weekly” that would became most popular. So popular that Uncle Sam wa