Don't feed black market greed
Price-control poster: a giant caricatured open mouth with a long pointed nose and chin swallows a stream of goods named in typewriter lettering (cars, lumber, meat, nylons, irons), while red dollar signs pierced by arrows fly toward it. The text asks buyers to pay no more than ceiling prices. The tell is the personified mouth of 'greed' as the villain, a simple image for a complex market.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1946
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- U.S. Office of Price Administration (artist Robbins)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Truman Administration
- Leader
- Harry S. Truman
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, Economy and finance
- Event
- World War II
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
U.S. Office of Price Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-661 (NAID 514140).
Text on the object
don't feed black market greed PAY NO MORE THAN CEILING PRICES [text in typewriter lettering on the red band, repeated and partly cut at the edge:] meat, nylons, butter, irons, electric toasters, washing machines, refrigerators, glass, cement, brick, lumber, new cars, used cars [signature:] Robbins [imprint:] ☆ U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1946—O-695617 [imprint:] UNITED STATES OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION WASHINGTON 25 D. C. INF-P2727 (5-46)
