Stay on the job
Uncle Sam in a star-banded top hat points a finger straight at the viewer with a stern look, above a red and blue banner reading 'Stay on the job'. The national personification stands in for the issuer and speaks to each worker directly; the technique is a transfer of the nation's authority onto an ordinary workplace instruction.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. government home-front campaign (artist James Montgomery Flagg, signed)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, Labor
- 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)
U.S. government home-front campaign. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-125 (NAID 513573).
Text on the object
STAY ON THE JOB [signature: James Montgomery Flagg] [imprint: From Painting by James Montgomery Flagg, © Life - Judge - Leslie Reference Library]
