---
title: 'Dictatorship: since 1929, in peace and war, average weekly wages in America have increased 34%'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dictatorship-average-weekly-wages-think-american-1941/
description: 'Think American poster: a large hairy hand marked ''DICTATORSHIP'' drives a knife through a pay check, with red blood on the blade and table.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Dictatorship: since 1929, in peace and war, average weekly wages

[![Dictatorship: since 1929, in peace and war, average weekly wages in America have increased 34%, 1941 US poster: Think](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dictatorship-average-weekly-wages-think-american-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dictatorship-average-weekly-wages-think-american-1941.jpg)

# Dictatorship: since 1929, in peace and war, average weekly wages in America have increased 34%

Think American poster: a large hairy hand marked 'DICTATORSHIP' drives a knife through a pay check, with red blood on the blade and table. Text gives two wage figures, up 34% in America since 1929 and down over 25% in the Axis dictator countries. The tell is the knife-and-blood image paired with a one-sided pair of statistics with no source printed.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Text on the object

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

```
DICTATORSHIP
PAY CHECK
Pev[illegible] [illegible]. Bohco.
No.1942
$48 [illegible]
[signature on check:] [illegible]
Since 1929, in peace and war,
average weekly wages in
America have increased 34%.
They've dropped over 25%
in the Axis Dictator
countries during that
same period
[signature:] C R MILLER
[imprint:] THINKAMERICAN INSTITUTE (seal)
[imprint:] THINKAMERICAN REG. U.S. PAT. OFF.
[imprint:] No. 147-COPYRIGHT,-KELLY-READ & CO., ROCHESTER, N.Y. [partly illegible]
```

[← Čuvaj se partizana! Čuvaj se tifusa! (Beware of the Partisan! Beware of Typhus!), Independent State of Croatia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cuvaj-se-partizana-tifus-ndh-1941/) [Diseases of youth →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/diseases-of-youth-1941/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
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- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
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