'The ATS wants cooks' (British Auxiliary Territorial Service recruiting poster)
Two women in white cooks' overalls, one holding a ladle, sit above a line of cheerful soldiers running with mess tins to a woman serving from steaming pots. The tell is the presentation of cooks as ordinary, smiling women whose work is eagerly awaited by the troops.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1939
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Auxiliary Territorial Service, via His Majesty's Stationery Office (printed by Wm. Brown & Co., Ltd., London)
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Recruit
- Themes
- War and the military, Labor
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- 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 Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (UK Crown copyright, 50 years from publication, expired before 1996; no URAA restoration)
Auxiliary Territorial Service via His Majesty's Stationery Office; printer Wm. Brown & Co., Ltd. Via the US National Archives (NARA, WWII Foreign Posters).
Text on the object
the ATS wants COOKS Printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Wm. Brown & Co., Ltd., E.C.3. 51-9560 P.R. 78.
