It can happen here! Unless we keep 'em firing!
Company-sponsored production poster: a bombed street scene with a collapsed house, rubble and a crushed car under 'It can happen here!', with 'Unless we keep 'em firing!' below and a circular inset of a fighter plane and tank firing. The heading shows the damage as a possible fate of the home audience, a fear-appeal pointing to production as the remedy.
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, Economy and finance, 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-113 (NAID 513561).
Text on the object
IT CAN HAPPEN HERE! -UNLESS WE KEEP 'EM FIRING! [imprint: COPYRIGHT, 1942 - OLDSMOBILE DIVISION, GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, LANSING, MICHIGAN] [imprint: LITHO IN U.S.A. -25-]
