Content note: Shows a racist caricature of Japanese people (yellow-green skin, bared teeth, round glasses) and the slur 'Jap' in the text, as printed. This object is shown as it was published. Why
If you worked as hard and fast as a Jap we'd smash Tokio a lot quicker
Company-issued war-production poster: a large Rising Sun flag fills the top, with a caricatured man with round glasses, bared teeth and yellow-green skin bent over a desk, and rows of similar figures behind him. The text says 'If you worked as hard and fast as a Jap we'd smash Tokio a lot quicker'. The slur and exaggerated faces are name-calling; the enemy flag is stigma transfer; the ask is for faster work.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Heppenstall Co., Steel Forgings, Pittsburgh, Pa.
- 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, Race and ethnicity
- 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)
Heppenstall Co., Steel Forgings, Pittsburgh, Pa.. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1070 (NAID 514597).
Text on the object
If you worked as hard and fast as a Jap we'd SMASH Tokio a lot quicker COPYRIGHT 1943, HEPPENSTALL CO., STEEL FORGINGS, PITTSBURGH, PA.
