"Are You Helping? With Salvage" (WPA, southern California, 1941-1943)
A wide strip poster shows seaplanes over a burst of flame and a welder at work, with the question 'Are you helping? with salvage'. The tell: the question assumes everyone else already is.
A wide strip poster from the Work Projects Administration in southern California, dated between 1941 and 1943, shows seaplanes over a burst of flame and a welder at work. It asks "ARE YOU HELPING? WITH SALVAGE" and aims to mobilize people on the U.S. home front. The tag is bandwagon: the question assumes that others are already helping, so the reader is nudged to join a presumed majority.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Work Projects Administration (southern California)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, Economy and finance
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, retrieved October 10, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. federal WPA work); LoC: no known restrictions on publication
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LCCN 98518981. "Are You Helping? With Salvage" (WPA, southern California, 1941-1943)
Text on the object
Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked
ARE YOU HELPING? WITH SALVAGE
Small print along the lower edge is not read here.
