"Prelude to freedom!!!" (Labor Day 1943)
A pencil cartoon headed 'Labor Day 1943' shows a worker labelled 'Enslaved Labor' with a chain on his ankle, standing on a map of Europe and looking toward Sicily, where British and US flags fly and aircraft pass overhead. The tell is transfer: the Allied flags are paired with the idea of freedom, against a chained-worker image of the Axis-occupied continent.
Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Office of War Information (cartoon artwork; artist Charles Alston)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- War and the military, Labor, Empire and colonialism
- 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, RG 208, Artworks and Mockups for Cartoons (NAID 535594), retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Office of War Information. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 208, 208-COM-142 (NAID 535655).
Text on the object
LABOR DAY 1943 ENSLAVED LABOR SICILY ITALY EUROPE "PRELUDE TO FREEDOM!!!" Alston OWI
