---
title: Fats Help Make Gunpowder
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/fats-help-make-gunpowder-1941/
description: Photo-panel sheet headed 'Fats Help Make Gunpowder', with five captioned photographs from a kitchen to a demolition blast and a 'Where fat goes' conversion
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Fats Help Make Gunpowder

[![Fats Help Make Gunpowder, 1941 US poster: Photo-panel sheet headed 'Fats Help Make Gunpowder', with five captioned](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/fats-help-make-gunpowder-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/fats-help-make-gunpowder-1941.jpg)

# Fats Help Make Gunpowder

Photo-panel sheet headed 'Fats Help Make Gunpowder', with five captioned photographs from a kitchen to a demolition blast and a 'Where fat goes' conversion table. Film actress Janet Blair is shown ladling fat, lending a celebrity's name to the chore (transfer); the pound-for-pound figures present only the favourable chain from fat to explosives (card-stacking).

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Text on the object

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

```
FATS HELP MAKE GUNPOWDER
a tablespoon each day from your kitchen
will crush the Axis
MOVIE STAR JANET BLAIR LADLES EXTRA FAT FROM THE ROASTING PAN. While edible fats should give all possible nutrition before going to war, some can be taken from the pan before making gravy. To meet war needs, every housewife must save one tablspoonful of fat each day.
TAKE THE FAT TO YOUR BUTCHER. Butchers all over the country are accepting household fats and greases which they will turn over to local rendering plants for conversion into glycerine. They will pay you for each pound of fat the price established by the official collection agency.
THE SOAP MAKER EXTRACTS THE GLYCERINE. Glycerine results from a soap making process. Glycerine makes explosives and camouflage paints. In this giant soap kettle fats become soap. When salt is added, the liquid part of this mixture will drop to the bottom of the kettle. That liquid, in the hands of chemists, becomes glycerine.
ACIDS TRANSFORM GLYCERINE INTO NITROGLYCERINE. When nitric and sulphuric acids are added to glycerine it becomes deadly nitroglycerine for explosives. When glycerine is allocated to one of our allies, it is usually shipped in its harmless state.
DEAD ANIMAL FATS ARE USEFUL
Renderers in the rural areas are prepared to process fats from dead farm animals. Your government needs this fat. You are urged to contact your nearest renderer to remove dead animals.
WHERE FAT GOES
One pound of waste fats equals 1/10 of a pound of glycerine. 1/10 of a pound of glycerine equals 1/5 of a pound of nitroglycerine. 1/5 of a pound of nitro-glycerine equals 1.3 pounds of gunpowder. 1/5 of a pound of nitro-glycerine equals 1/2 of a pound of dynamite. 50 pounds of waste cooking fats equals 5 pounds of glycerine, or enough to manufacture synthetic resin sufficient to produce enough camouflage to cover one medium tank.
WASTE FATS HELP CAUSE THIS EXPLOSION. This demolition charge would have blown out a section of railroad track if it had been set under the rails instead of in a bank of earth during maneuvers. A Marine demolition squad in training at the New River, N. C. base goes through the full routine of destroying a strategic railway line.
```

[← Farmers join hands](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/farmers-join-hands-1941/) ['Feeding 45 Millions: Food Convoy' (British Ministry of Information poster) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/feeding-45-millions-food-convoy-1941/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Clay cylinder with the Ehulhul inscription of Nabonidus, king of Babylon, describing work on three temples](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cylinder-nabonidus-ehulhul-inscription-555bce/) (Neo Babylonian Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Seated limestone statue of Hatshepsut as king, with feminine royal titles on the throne, reassembled from fragments broken up at Deir el-Bahri](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hatshepsut-seated-statue-limestone-met-1458bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Transfer, Testimonial)
- [Glazed-brick panel with a striding lion, from Babylon (reign of Nebuchadnezzar II)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ishtar-gate-panel-striding-lion-nebuchadnezzar-ii-604bce/) (Neo Babylonian Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Limestone relief block of Ramesses II wearing the White Crown, a jubilee relief from his temple at Herakleopolis](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jubilee-relief-ramesses-ii-herakleopolis-met-05-4-256/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Gypsum alabaster slab inscribed in cuneiform, from Nimrud (Kalhu), reign of Ashurnasirpal II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/nimrud-slab-ashurnasirpal-ii-inscription-883bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Egyptian alabaster jar inscribed with the name of Xerxes the Great in four languages (Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian, Egyptian), 486 to 466 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/xerxes-jar-four-languages-486bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Transfer)