Content note: A cartoon showing a hunched, caricatured man labelled 'Black Market Operator' carrying stolen meat from a food-supply doorway under a spotlight, as published. This object is shown as it was published. Why
"Turn the Spotlight on the Traitor!!"
A spotlight catches a hunched, wary man labelled 'Black Market Operator' as he carries a carcass and a sack out of a doorway marked 'The Nation's Food Supply'. The caption calls him a traitor. The tell is name-calling and scapegoating: a wartime shortage is personified in one figure, and the label 'traitor' is applied to rationing violators.
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
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, 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 (NARA), RG 208, OWI Cartoon Artworks and Mockups (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-130 (NAID 535643).
Text on the object
THE NATION'S FOOD SUPPLY BLACK MARKET OPERATOR "TURN THE SPOTLIGHT ON THE TRAITOR!!" 36 1/2 Picas Alston OWI
