Content note: Ethnic slur ('Jap') in the title; the Japanese enemy is drawn as a bucktoothed rat in a trap. This object is shown as it was published. Why
"Jap Trap": Material Conservation (Douglas Aircraft poster)
A bucktoothed rat in round glasses, a rising-sun cap flying off his head, is caught by the jaws of a mousetrap marked 'Material Conservation'; the title reads '"Jap Trap".' Saving materials on a factory floor is staged as a trap for a verminous Japanese figure, so the slur and the animal do the arguing.
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc., material conservation program (poster artist signed Campbell)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Themes
- Labor, Home front, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- World War II
- Techniques
- Name-calling
- 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 (NARA 515862, local id 44-PA-2156), via Wikimedia Commons, retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain in the US (published 1942 without a copyright notice); NARA: No Copyright - United States
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA 515862, 44-PA-2156)
Text on the object
MATERIAL CONSERVATION "JAP TRAP" One of a series designed by Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc., under its material conservation program. (Top right, faint artist signature: Campbell)
The signature at upper right is faint in this scan; read as 'Campbell' with moderate confidence.
