---
title: Materials Are Precious! Let's Make Every Piece Count!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/materials-are-precious-alexander-1943/
description: A grinning worker labelled 'You & I' beside a factory watches a shell fall toward a caricatured Japanese soldier with round glasses, bristling hair and…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Caricatured Japanese soldier with exaggerated teeth fleeing a falling shell. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Materials Are Precious! Let's Make Every Piece Count!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/materials-are-precious-alexander-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/materials-are-precious-alexander-1943.jpg)

# Materials Are Precious! Let's Make Every Piece Count!

A grinning worker labelled 'You & I' beside a factory watches a shell fall toward a caricatured Japanese soldier with round glasses, bristling hair and exposed teeth who is running across a Pacific island chain, while a vulture asks 'D'ya remember Pearl Harbor, kid?!'. A saved-materials slogan is turned into a gag at the enemy's expense.

## Text on the object

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

```
MATERIALS ARE PRECIOUS!-- LET'S MAKE EVERY PIECE COUNT!

BOY, OH BOY!... THAT COULD BE SOME OF THE MATERIAL I'VE SAVED ON MY JOB!!

YOU & I

D'YA REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR, KID?!

ALEXANDER

LITHO. IN U.S.A.
FORM 155270RE
```

Form number at lower right read as '155270RE' (uncertain). A handwritten number ('2234') appears at the foot.

[← Make Your Own Declaration of War: Buy War Bonds](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/make-your-own-declaration-of-war-buy-war-bonds-1943/) [The More Women at Work the Sooner We Win! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/more-women-at-work-sooner-we-win-1943/)

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- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (Dutch Republic · 1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (Great Britain · 1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
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- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Province of Massachusetts Bay · Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Hand-coloured engraving of bloodied dead and wounded colonists after soldiers fired on a crowd.
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (France · 1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)