You Won't Always be in Uniform - Don't Find Yourself in a Tight Corner After the War, 1939 Canada poster: Four cheerful

You Won't Always be in Uniform - Don't Find Yourself in a Tight Corner After the War (War Savings Certificates)

Four cheerful servicemen chat under a street lamp in the upper panel; below, three unshaven men in worn clothes stand on a pavement beside a '25c and up' room sign. The tell is the before-and-after pairing, with a single prescribed remedy, a 'savings backlog' in War Savings Certificates, against 'a financial tight corner after the war'.

Propaganda techniques used in this poster

Fear appeal

Date: 1939
Period: Second World War
Made by: Canadian War Savings Certificates campaign (issuer not printed); artist 'Ricky' (RCAF)
Region: North America
Country: Canada
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: State
Regime: Mackenzie King Government
Leader: William Lyon Mackenzie King
Audience: Domestic public
Purpose: Mobilize or secure compliance
Themes: Home front, Economy and finance
Event: World War II
Source: Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
Rights: Held by NARA, Unrestricted; hosted by owner decision (Canadian wartime poster, issuer imprint not fully shown)
Artist 'Ricky' (RCAF); War Savings Certificates campaign, Canada. National Archives and Records Administration, 44-PF-739.

Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

YOU WON'T ALWAYS BE IN UNIFORM
DON'T FIND YOURSELF IN A FINANCIAL TIGHT CORNER AFTER THE WAR
GUARANTEE YOUR FUTURE BY BUILDING UP A SAVINGS BACKLOG THROUGH-
War Savings Certificates.
[signature:] Ricky RCAF
[sign in drawing:] ROOM 25c AND UP