SELLING A POST-WAR DREAM
From relatively early in the war, many companies began to promote a vision of post-war America in their advertisements. While never ceasing to remind Americans of the importance of continuing their support of the war, they began to talk about life when peace returned. This approach sent several messages to consumers. As we have seen, it allowed companies to keep their names before the public when they had few products to sell. Advertisers also emphasized the technological improvements that Americans could expect from wartime research and development. Again, as propaganda tools, they reminded consumers why we fought and that their efforts brought the promised post-war world closer. Towards the end of the war, some companies began to address the question of jobs for returning veterans.
As an important defense contractor and a major advertiser in LIFE Magazine throughout the war, Nash Kelvinator's ad campaigns offer a prime example of the evolving nature of advertising over the course of the war. Earlier in the war, the company's advertising campaigns focused on their manufacturing contributions to the war effort. Beginning around 1943, the advertisements began to exhibit a greater emphasis on morale issues with dramatically illustrated emotional appeals to patriotism, national values, and support of the military. Around this time and for the remainder of the war, their messages also began to emphasize the themes of the return of loved ones and the return to peacetime life. Additional examples of both campaigns can be found in the collections accompanying this exhibit. See the "Additional Resources" page in this exhibit.
In the emotionally charged "when you come to me" advertisement above a wife describes to her absent husband the life he can expect when they are reunited at war's end. "Everything will be here, just as you left it, just as you want it when you return to me!" Other than the Nash-Kelvinator logo at the bottom of the drawing, the advertisement makes no mention of the company's military production. The advertisement notes that copies were available from the company on request for inclusion "in your next letter to someone in our fighting forces."
The "hills of home" advertisement, published a few months later, offers essentially the same message, this time from the point of view of a war-weary combat veteran. This time, however, Nash adds a message about the company's new and improved automobiles when peace returns. Their message includes phrases like "style and comfort and ease of handling", rarely seen in advertisements earlier in the war.
"My tomorrow", published in the spring of 1945, is a much more upbeat advertisement, reflecting the country's expectation that the war's end is at last in sight. The art depicts a smiling veteran driving a new car, happily contemplating his return to civilian life. In a hint of the upcoming return to civilian production, the company actually names two new planned models.
The "happily ever after" advertisement, published in April of 1945, was another upbeat advertisement eagerly anticipating the country's return to peace. In this ad, published by the company's Kelvinator division and told from the point of view of a young housewife, the emphasis is on the company's new and improved kitchen products which promise to "make the kitchens of America the truly enchanted places they can be". The ad includes an offer of a booklet describing floor plans of new post war homes and Kelvinator-inspired kitchens.
Despite the optimism about the return of peace after four years of war, there were real fears of a possible post-war depression as military spending ended and nearly 12 million veterans would be returning to the job market. These fears were never realized as the United States entered a phenomenal period of economic growth in the decade or so after the war because of such factors as the return of the auto industry, a housing boom, the eventual return to higher defense spending during the cold war, and government aid to returning veterans in the form of the GI Bill.
In June 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, better known today as the GI Bill. The Veterans Administration, as it was known then, was charged with carrying out the law’s key provisions. Among other things, the GI Bill appropriated $500 million for the construction of facilities for veterans, authorized unemployment compensation of $20 per week for up to one year, offered job placement aid for vets and provided up to four years of education and training at an annual tuition rate of $500 along with a stipend ranging from $50 to $74 per month.
Source: "Fighting for Employment: Veterans in the '40s and Today." Workforce Magazine. N.p., 22 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.
http://www.workforce.com/2012/02/22/fighting-for-employment-veterans-in-the-40s-and-today/
Companies such as Socony Oil and Greyhound used advertisements to assure veterans that their jobs would be waiting when they returned.