A New Gift: Venereal Disease

OK, I know the Keep Calm and Carry On poster is a hit, but really, WHY would you want to wear this on your t-shirts! I'm giving a conference paper on health propaganda next week, most likely Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases, but VD was also another area that I researched (not personally, I hasten to add), and this is what came up when I searched for "Venereal Disease": http://www.zazzle.co.uk/venereal+disease+gifts?pg=4

ww2poster Blog

I've added a new, more specialist, blog on WordPress: http://ww2poster.wordpress.com/. I will be back with this one too... but I have lots to say on posters, and with the whole furore over the Keep Calm and Carry On posters, it seems people are interested!

Bill Pertwee: The Warden Says

I'm currently trying to write my abstract for the "Framing Film" conference at the University of Winchester, and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours this afternoon watching "The Warden Says" introduced by Bill Pertwee (on VHS, how old school.. and now I see they are available on DVD!)... thank goodness such little gems have survived!

I know far more about the posters themselves, but there are a few good examples to use for the abstracts from the 48 mini-films (many only a minute or two, to one mini-film at around 20 minutes!), covering recruitment, careless talk, the blackout, cigarette dangers, careless sneezes cost diseases, food choices, dig for victory, salvage (tin/bones/paper), holiday harvests, save fuel and save water! Many echo the messages used in the posters, whilst others actually feature the posters themselves. That should fit well with the 'call for papers' on "Cinema’s relationship with, and even reliance upon, the other visual arts, whether for subject matter, inter-textual promotion or graphic design, is central to our understanding and appreciation of the medium."

DVD 1: The Warden Says
DVD 2: The Warden Says: II

Faber Finds: Mass-Observation

Mass-Observation
I used the Mass-Observation archives extensively in my PhD research (see www.ww2poster.co.uk), as it has lots of really interesting material from observations (both direct and indirect) plus collated materials from the war years (and since). It was really ahead of its time! Much of the best material is only available by visiting the archives (based at the University of Sussex), but some of their published material is shortly to be published by Faber & Faber in modern editions.

"They offer an extraordinarily vivid glimpse of a time which will soon not be accessible to living memory. Not only that, they provide evidence of how astutely Mass Observation pre-figured many later intellectual and methodological developments in social research especially in oral history and life history research, in feminist and working class history and in the kind of social research which privileges what we sometimes call the 'ordinary person' and the importance of studying everyday life" Professor Dorothy Sheridan, Mass Observation Archive.

I would particularly recommend these wartime finds:

• War Begins at Home (1940)
• War Factory (1943)

Keep Calm and Carry On

"For many the wartime slogans, such as Dig for Victory, Careless Talk Costs Lives, and Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases, have never been forgotten. Such slogans have been passed on as a part of our common heritage," says Dr Rebecca Lewis, a historian who has made a study of the subject. "Posters that were not published or were withdrawn also make for interesting study, particularly for reasons as to why they were rejected," she adds. "However, there do not seem to be many examples of these, although whether this is because records of unsuccessful designs were not kept or because there were not many was not established."

Simon Edge, 'Sign of the Times', Daily Express, Thursday March 19, 2009, p36

So, a part of my thesis is finally published... my book is still in the planning stages, and the website: http://www.ww2poster.co.uk/ needs a distinct overhaul and I am throwing around ideas for an associated blog, but I'm not there yet [EDIT: See http://ww2poster.wordpress.com/]! In the meantime, I've been quoted in the national press in relation to a story which now I've done a bit of a hunt, appears to have been circulating for some time, re the discovery of the unpublished Second World War posters 'Keep Calm and Carry On' ten years ago by Barter Books, and it's continued surprise success (although with my love of wartime posters I don't find the idea that people love posters surprising, it is surprising that such a generally non-visual design is popular, but the slogan is very strong, and very apt in the present times)!

PhD Findings
My PhD 'The Planning, Design and Reception of British Home Front Propaganda Posters of the Second World War' was awarded (without corrections) in June 2004 by what is now the University of Winchester.

A section from pages 104-5 of my thesis (copy held in the Imperial War Museum, and in the RKE Centre at the University of Winchester):

The poster with a proclamation from the King was to be ‘plastered everywhere in order to drive the contents into everyone’s head’.[1] By August 1939 war was regarded as inevitable, and by 9 August the finished drawings were submitted to Macadam for final approval. Any adaptations to proportions would then be made and the posters printed.[2] By 23 August the proportions to be printed were decided. The percentages were: ‘Freedom is in Peril’ (for remote areas), 12% (figure 22); ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’, 65%; and ‘Your Courage, etc.’, 23% (figure 1).[3] The Treasury had approved costs for a single poster, three designs were produced, exceeding estimates by under £50. “Our Fighting Men Depend on You” for factories, works, docks and harbours, was also printed, for which no allowance had originally been made.[4] By September, ‘Your Courage’ and ‘Freedom is in Peril’ were already being posted throughout the country. ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’ was printed and held in reserve for when the necessity arose, for example, a severe air-raid, although it was never actually displayed. Soon after war was declared, the small poster ‘Don’t Help the Enemy, Careless Talk may give away vital secrets’ (figure 62) was approved by the War Office and was ready to put into production. 58,000 copies had already been distributed by September 17, and 75,000 copies were to be despatched daily from September 26.[5] By the end of September 1939, roughs for further designs had been prepared and approved, including messages from the King and the Queen, designs specifically for factories and docks, and designs specifically for each branch of the armed services: reassurance, not recruiting, posters.[6]

[1] PRO INF 1/10, ‘Functions and Organisation of the Ministry. Memorandum by E.B. Morgan’, early 1939.
[2] PRO INF 1/266, ‘Memo from Vaughan to Macadam’, August 9 1939.
[3] PRO INF 1/226, ‘Letter from Macadam to W.G.V. Vaughan’, August 23 1939. In the same folder, ‘Demand for Printing Slip for HMSO’, August 31 1939, and ‘Poster Campaign: Distribution’, November 1 1940, give details of the exact quantities ordered on August 31 1939, in a variety of sizes and in both broadside and upright versions, and where distributed. PRO INF 1/302, ‘Summary of Activities of Home Publicity Division’, September 28 1939 notes that all sizes were included, from 20ft. by 10ft. down to 15” x 10”.
[4] PRO INF 1/226, ‘Letter from I.S.Macadam, MOI to E.Rowe-Dutton, Treasury’, September 4 1939.
[5] PRO INF 1/6, ‘First Report on the Activities of the Ministry of Information from September 3 to September 17 1939’, September 1939.
[6] PRO INF 1/302, ‘Summary of Activities of Home Publicity Division’, September 28 1939.

I have lots more I could say, and hope to be back with some more considered comments, summarising elements of my PhD, before I get round to the book!

Some Links:

• Stories
  Simon Edge, 'Sign of the Times', Daily Express, 19th March 2009 (not online)
• Jon Henley, 'What Crisis?', The Guardian, 18th March 2009
• Jess Cartner-Morley, 'Women of Britain - your designers need you!', 28th February 2009
• 'Keep Calm and Put Your Poster Up', Guardian Picture Gallery (not the subverted design!)
• Jane Fryer, 'Exquisitely understated, utterly inspiring, the wartime poster striking a chord in our credit-crunch times', Daily Mail, 19th March 2009
• Stuart Hughes, ''The greatest motivational poster ever?', BBC News, 4 February 2009
• 'Bookseller discovers rare wartime Keep Calm and Carry On poster', Telegraph, 23 February 2009
• I'm trying to identify a story I saw the other week, regarding temporarily taking on less hours to secure a job, as this poster was on the pictured employees desk...
• Products
• Barter Books: the 'Keep Calm' range (Mary's blog entry on the success of their find, the history (taken from my site))
• The competition, obliquely referred to by Barter Books.
• Retro to Go: Keep Calm
• Keep Calm: Rugs
  

“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

"The slogan itself is a great discussion starter. Telling someone "there's probably no God" is a bit like telling them that they've probably remembered to lock their front door. It creates the doubt that they might not have done so.”

Read more on Christian Today

DespairWear and Subversion!

DespairWear

I love the subverted messages that come through from Despairwear (in fact any recognisable brand that can be subverted is of interest, has been so since I have seen people subverting the Second World War posters that I spent many years studying for my PhD!)

I thought this t-shirt was particularly apt, as I don't think I've quite found my focus with this blog yet, so it's likely to be highly relevant, ah, the New Year, all will change... right?!