Content note: Swastika-shaped shadow falling across three children. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Don't Let That Shadow Touch Them: Buy War Bonds
Three children play on a lawn, a boy with a toy warplane, a toddler with a paper hat and a flag, and a girl with a doll, while a large dark shadow in the shape of a swastika falls across the grass around them. The threat is never shown directly: the viewer is told that buying a bond keeps it off the children.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. government war bond campaign (artist Lawrence Beall Smith; printed by the U.S. Government Printing Office)
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
- Fundraise
- Themes
- War and the military, 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, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work; LOC: no known restrictions on publication)
Lawrence Beall Smith. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-43383.
Text on the object
Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked
Don't Let That Shadow Touch Them Buy WAR BONDS [illegible — small printer's job-number line, bottom right]
A small white printer's credit line in the bottom right of the green band (beginning 'U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE') is present but too low-resolution to transcribe the job number and poster number with confidence.
