---
title: News to Use
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/news-to-use-gift-goods-wpb-1943/
description: 'Landscape trade sheet in black and white: a headline block, an article headed ''Give Them Facts About Gifts'' and some thirty small illustrated panels'
section: Collection
---

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3. News to Use

[![News to Use, 1943 US poster: Landscape trade sheet in black and white](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/news-to-use-gift-goods-wpb-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/news-to-use-gift-goods-wpb-1943.jpg)

# News to Use

Landscape trade sheet in black and white: a headline block, an article headed 'Give Them Facts About Gifts' and some thirty small illustrated panels (silverware, toys, books, jewelry, luggage and so on), each with a paragraph on what wartime rules allow. The technique is faint: the facts are chosen to prepare shoppers for scarcity, and the text advises retailers to let customers blame the enemy powers for disappointments.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Text on the object

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

```
NEWS TO USE
Wartime facts about the goods you sell. . . Use them in advertising copy . . . in planning displays . . . in training store personnel. . . .
Prepared by the WPB Division of Information
Basic distribution through the courtesy of NRDGA and NRFA. Dec. 1943
Give Them Facts About Gifts
Holiday shoppers naturally want to know how gift merchandise is related to wartime regulations, changes and adjustments. Shoppers, familiar with the facts, will choose wisely, be understanding about shortages, blame Hitler and Hirohito—rather than your store—for any disappointments.
For your convenience, this "News to Use" presents groups of Christmas goods, gives you the WPB highlights for each group. Some facts, however, apply generally.
Gifts are not the subject of any WPB order. For gift purposes, merchandise is no more nor less controlled than for other purposes.
Materials are under wartime strains. Some are too critical to be used for general civilian purposes. Others are available only in reduced quantity. Still others, not short in themselves, can't be processed in endless quantity. Metals, paper, leather, textiles, wood, finishing materials are all deeply involved in war problems.
Facilities making civilian goods are, in a great number of instances, also being used for war orders. This is particularly important in the textile field, where spindles make yarns to weave both military and civilian goods, and looms must weave both.
Manpower is not available in sufficient quantity to make war goods plus all the civilian products people might like to buy. This means that a good many of the less essential articles will be absent from this year's holiday lines, that variety of style and color will almost invariably be less than in peacetime.
Imported articles are few. This wartime condition often leaves holiday stocks without a good many of the unusual novelties and exquisite luxuries which shoppers had learned to expect.
Containers are by no means plentiful. Demand from the Armed Forces is enormous; materials and facilities less than enough for military requirements plus endless civilian supply. Delay in obtaining containers may, in some cases, slow the movement of gift goods. Container simplification leaves Christmas counters with few fancy packages.
Transportation is under the greatest difficulties in our history. Unquestionably there will sometimes be delays in the delivery of eagerly awaited goods. Manpower figures in this problem, as in all others, for someone must handle each carton of holiday goods.
Inventories of goods made before existing restrictions, or even before the war, still exist in diminishing quantities. They will sometimes make possible the purchase of merchandise which is no longer being made or imported.
These facts, plus many more in this "News to Use", will make your holiday advertising copy informative, your holiday displays in keeping with the times, your holiday salespeople better able to answer customers' questions.
TELL WHILE YOU SELL
[Remainder omitted at the 4000-character cap: the sheet continues with illustrated panels headed Silverware, Handkerchiefs, Gift Wrappings, Mirrors . . . Pictures, Handbags, Belts, Toys and Dolls, Lingerie . . . all types, Blankets, Comforts, Sporting Goods, Furniture, Games . . . all types, Trees, Ornaments, Sweaters . . . all types, Slippers . . . all types, Stationery, Electrical Goods, Books, all types, Hosiery, all types, Beauty Articles, Gloves . . . all types, Luggage . . . all types, Men's Furnishings, Toilet Articles, Cameras . . . Film, Apparel Novelties, Jewelry . . . Watches and China . . . Glass, each with a short paragraph on wartime restrictions, and the imprint U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943 O - 581048.]
```

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## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Behistun (Bisotun) rock relief and trilingual inscription of Darius I: the king, two attendants and the bound rebel leaders beneath the winged figure of Ahuramazda](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/behistun-relief-darius-and-rebels-521bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Shows bound captives before the king, and the inscription records the mutilation and public execution of rebel leaders, as the king's own account.
- [Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam: the king in relief beside his inscription DNa, c. 490 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dna-inscription-darius-i-naqsh-e-rustam-490bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Testimonial, Card stacking)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Persepolis, Apadana staircase relief: a figure with an animal from a procession of delegations, early fifth century BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/persepolis-apadana-delegate-relief-500bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Manufactured consensus)
- [Alabaster relief, Assyrian troops storming a citadel, from Nineveh (reign of Sennacherib)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/relief-sennacherib-storming-citadel-nineveh-704bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Card stacking). Content note: An Assyrian palace relief of troops storming a fortified city, with a file of figures below; Assyrian royal reliefs and texts record killing, mutilation and deportation, shown as carved, with the historical context and scholarly dispute on the regime page.
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Silver denarius of Vespasian, reverse IVDAEA with a trophy of arms and a seated mourning woman](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/denarius-vespasian-judaea-capta-0070/) (Roman Empire · 0070 · Card stacking). Content note: A Roman victory coin showing a mourning female figure as the personification of the conquered province of Judaea after the Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt; shown as struck, with the historical context on the regime page.