If you can't GO across - COME ACROSS! Produce! Keep 'em firing!
Industrial production poster: at the top, three helmeted soldiers stand before a troopship and army trucks; below, a worker in a blue shirt leans over a lathe beneath a large red 'Produce!'. The pun on 'across' ties the machinist's output to the soldiers' overseas service, so the worker's job takes on the soldiers' standing. This is a different design from the Abbott Laboratories sheet with a similar title.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Oldsmobile Division, General Motors Corporation (Lansing, Michigan)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, Labor, War and the military
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 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)
Oldsmobile Division, General Motors Corporation. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1063 (NAID 514587).
Text on the object
IF YOU CAN'T GO ACROSS- COME ACROSS! Produce! KEEP 'EM FIRING! COPYRIGHT, 1942—OLDSMOBILE DIVISION, GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, LANSING, MICHIGAN 29
