"They Need You - Now!!"
A young woman in cap and gown with a diploma faces a robed, translucent nurse figure who extends both hands toward her, while two soldiers help a wounded third man in the background under aircraft. A caption quotes a news item that 60,000 more nurses are needed and high school graduates are urged to enrol. The tell is an emotional recruitment appeal: wounded soldiers and an allegorical figure stand in for the demand, with a single prescribed action.
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
- Recruit
- Themes
- War and the military, Health, Gender and suffrage
- 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, RG 208, Artworks and Mockups for Cartoons Promoting the War Effort, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Office of War Information. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 208, 208-COM-145 (NAID 535658).
Text on the object
60,000 MORE NURSES NEEDED. HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES URGED TO ENROLL...... NEWS ITEM. "THEY NEED YOU—NOW!!" Alston OWI
