The “propaganda style” is a hip artistic trope common today, used everywhere cool from Battlestar Galactica to Obama (and, really, most everything coming out of Obey Giant or Brute!), and most people immediately connect the style fascism, appearing in Soviet and Spanish and Nazi imagery from the mid-20th century.  The visual style itself was relatively common for the time – it, when not used for war efforts, is often considered the “WPA” style of the 1930s – and used for the strength and power in its sharp angles and bright colors.  It was also borne of the limited resources in wartime, relying on few colors, simple shapes that helped registration, and getting the most out of limited printing materials.  The United States used it through its wartime graphics, too, albeit with a slightly different tone than the more stridently nationalist posters and designs of other countries.

I was just digging through a bunch of old postage stamps of mine – among my favorites are the Soviet one-color stamps of the sixties – but as I was browsing the loose piles I started pulling out some slightly older, and definitely more American postage stamps of a similar theme.   Shortly after our entry into World War II, the USPS began printing stamps dedicated the war effort.  The first of the wartime stamps were released on October 16, 1940, which was also known as “National Registration Day,”  the day all males from ages 21 to 36 were required to register for the Draft.  The U.S. wasn’t officially part of the war yet, but there was little question we would soon enter the fray, and nationalism was beginning to grow.  These three “National Defense” stamps, in the most common rates of 1¢, 2¢, and 3¢, were positioned to be the most commonly-used stamps in the United States during the war.   While they don’t immediately evoke the nationalistic style, they’re clearly working towards it.   Each was designed by prolific stamp designer William A. Roach, has “For Defense” across the bottom, above the rate, and each honors a different aspect of the U.S.’ assets at the time.  The 1¢ depicted the Statue of Liberty, and is titled “Industry and Agriculture”; the 2¢ depicted an antiaircraft gun, and is titled “Army and Navy”;  and the 3¢ depicts the “Torch of Enlightenment” and is titled “Security, Education, Conservation, Health”.   In all, nearly 20 billion were printed of the three designs combined, making them quite common, but the speed with which they were printed resulted in a significant number of errors, which has made some batches of stamps more desirable to collectors today.  The stamps were intended to replace the regular ‘definitive’ series depicting presidents, and citizens were encouraged to buy extra stamps to bolster the war effort.

On July 4, 1942, the first war-themed stamp after the U.S.’ entry into WWII was the 3¢ “Win The War”  eagle stamp, replacing the “Torch of Enlightenment” National Defense stamp.  Also by W.A. Roach, the purple stamp depicts an eagle, wings spread, surrounded by thirteen stars and drawn in the sharp Art Deco style, resembling a “V”.  The Postal Service, due to the war effort, pulled back on the production of new stamp designs, and for the first year of WWII this became one of the most common stamps in use, with over twenty billion printed of the single stamp design.  Six months later,  on January 14, 1943, the Postal Service released the “Nations United for Victory” 2¢ stamp, replacing the antiaircraft National Defense stamp.   This stamp depicts an extended arm holding a palm frond upwards, at the apex of a phalanx of raised swords, a symbol of peace at the forefront of military strength and an allegory of Victory.  Only around 2 billion of these were printed, but they are hardly rare.  The last of the war effort stamps was the Four Freedoms  1¢ stamp, released a month later on 12 February 1943, which replaced the Statue of Liberty National Defense stamp.   This stamp – I can only assume also by Roach -  was designed in a neoclassical style, resembling a figure in bas-relief, captioned “Freedom of Speech and Religion, From Want and Fear”, the ‘four freedoms’ established in a 6 January 1941 State of the Union address by FDR.   Like the Nations United stamp, only around 2 billion of these were printed, and they are a little less common overall than the others.  After the Four Freedoms stamp, the design of war-related stamps became more commemorative, a series of flags of invaded countries, images of Iwo Jima and D-Day, and commemoration of the United Nations.

These six stamps show a clear progression in the design and style of “propaganda” stamps at the time.  The first three stamps were rather simple and generic in their design, a single image surrounded by a lot of blank space and a few words in simple fonts.  Once the war was under way, however, that creativity seen in all other forms of nationalistic art seeps in, producing three significantly more artistic stamps, in three different styles – a modern art-deco, a traditional allegory, and an aesthetic neoclassic.   Whether you prefer to call them propaganda or patriotism, the artistic relevance of these stamps is greater than the postage price in the corner.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 2:34 am and is filed under collecting fyi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.