All-Out for Victory!

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the U.S. into World War II, many Madison Avenue ad agencies instantly revised their promotional campaigns to support home front aspects of the war effort. Focusing less on the sale of their own particular products, magazine ads increasingly showcased how their products would be used in the war efforts. In addition, ads helped civilians cope with wartime shortages ranging from food stuffs to shoes to tires; they offered advice on how to keep leftovers tasty, how to make your shoes last, and how to keep your car in good working order. Ads also encouraged Victory gardens, scrap collections, and most importantly, the purchase of war bonds. As Jones demonstrates, magazine advertising did its bit to create the most efficient home front possible in order to support the war effort. Jones examines hundreds of ads from ten large-circulation general-interest and news magazines of the period: Life, Look, Collier's, Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Esquire, Time, Newsweek, Business Week, and Farm Journal and Farmer's Wife. Nearly all these magazines had a subscriber base in the millions, so war ads in them were seen by large numbers of home front Americans in the widest possible geographic and demographic distribution. Jones discusses motivational war ads, industrial and agricultural support for the war ads, home front efficiency, conservation, and volunteerism ads, ads that offer ways to cope with shortages and rationing, ads directed at uplifting the morale of civilians and GIs, women and work ads, and ads depicting what people will be able to buy once the war is over. Contextualizing these ads in a social history of the period, this book offers a new way of looking at these very compelling years in American history.

JOHN BUSH JONES is the author of Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theater (Brandeis 2003) and The Songs that Fought the War (Brandeis 2005).