Scrap helps to make tanks, jeeps and guns
Six-photograph sheet running from scrap yards and a molten-metal ladle to a tank, a jeep and field guns, each with a caption. The tell is the chain of images that carries the prestige of the armed forces onto farm scrap, backed by one selected figure ('50 per cent of the steel in this tank is scrap').
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Unnamed issuer (no agency printed on the sheet)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, War and the military, Economy and finance
- 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)
Unnamed issuer. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1689 (NAID 515360).
Text on the object
SCRAP HELPS TO MAKE TANKS, JEEPS AND GUNS STEEL MILLS NEED FARM SCRAP. Heavy scrap metal collected from farms and rural areas is received at the steel mill where it will be processed into steel for weapons of war. CAR BODIES MAKE BUNDLES OF STEEL. The car bodies beside this railroad siding have been burned out and are now ready for the press which will convert them into the tidy little bundles of steel shown in the freight cars. Automobile bodies must be pressed into this compact form to prevent them from "burning up" in the steel furnaces. MOLTEN METAL SPEEDS STEEL PRODUCTION. A ladle of molten iron from a blast furnace is poured into an open hearth furnace for conversion into steel. This process speeds steel production by saving melting time. 50 PER CENT OF THE STEEL IN THIS TANK IS SCRAP. The scrap remaining on U. S. farms today could build a fleet of such tanks as shown above that would be invincible. Your scrap is needed to make all the planes, ships, tanks and guns needed for Victory. THE TOUGHEST LITTLE THING ON WHEELS. United States Army jeeps require tough steel to withstand the punishment they must take on our battlefronts. Scrap from farms and from old automobiles help to make the jeep withstand heavy poundings. THESE GUNS USE TONS OF STEEL. When these field pieces go into action, their barrels must be made of the finest steel to insure accuracy, and every time they are fired, it means that pounds of your old scrap are being hurled at the enemy. Consider the number of weapons of this type in action, and you get a fair idea of how much scrap is needed, not only to fire this type of gun, but all other weapons used on our world wide battlefronts.
