WWII Posters: "Back Home For Keeps"

There’s a scene in Sideways, a 2004 movie about two forty-something guys (Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church) who head off for a week in California wine country that I think about every time I open a bottle of wine. Giamatti’s character meets a winemaker, played by Virginia Madsen, who, when he asks, explains why she is infatuated with wine.

“I like to think about the life of wine,” she tells him. “How it’s a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it’s an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now.”

I feel much the same way about vintage advertising posters. As my regular readers know, I have at least 200 of them (maybe more—I’ve been cataloging them for the last week and still have a large stack to cull through). I like to think about the times in which they were issued and how those times differ from today. As an advertising man, I like to think about the objective the marketer who commissioned the poster explained to the artist and copywriter; whether the words inspired the art (as a writer, I always hope that’s the case) or vice versa; where it was printed and by whom; the printing process that was used; where it was displayed; how a fragile piece of paper somehow managed to survive for anywhere from 60 to 125 years; why someone thought it was important enough to preserve; where it has been kept, and how many hands it has passed through to get from where it was printed to where it is today.

My collection is, to put it mildly, eclectic. It includes posters promoting airlines, railroads, travel destinations, wine, beer, chocolate, circus acts, fashion, sporting events, sporting goods, automobile and aircraft manufacturers, and oil companies, among others.

I have a number of posters from both World Wars encouraging Americans, Brits and Canadians to purchase bonds to support the war effort, to keep their lips zipped about troop movements lest they be overhead by enemy spies, to conserve resources, and to enlist.

Today I ran across 10 altogether different types of World War II posters stashed away at the back of a closet. All were issued by Oneida Ltd., a manufacturer of silver service and silver-plated flatware, to address a specific and unusual marketing problem the company was facing.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government ordered manufacturers of silver and silver-plate to cease production – the raw materials were needed for the war effort.  As one of the country’s biggest manufacturers, Oneida found itself in a quandary: How best to keep its brand name alive to capitalize on what would surely be a marriage boom once GI’s, airmen and sailors returned home. Though it couldn’t manufacture its products during the war, Oneida wanted to make sure that, once it was over and brides were in the market to choose silver and flatware, they’d choose Oneida. I'd have to guess that if you're a Boomer whose parents lived through WWII, you probably grew up with Oneida products in your home as a direct result of the campaign I'm about to describe.

The company’s advertising agency came up with a novel and patriotic series of ads that pictured the fondest dreams of millions of young women – the moment, sometime in the future, they would be reunited with their boyfriends. The campaign, conceived by copywriter Jean Wade Ridlaub and illustrated by Jon Whitcomb (hooray – the writer was credited with the idea) was called “Back Home for Keeps.” From 1942 through 1945, a series of 26 “Back Home for Keeps” ads ran in leading women’s magazines, becoming instant classics.

As reported in a 2012 article in the Oneida (NY) Daily Dispatch, “Oneida became buried under an avalanche of letters from women and soldiers moved emotionally by the ads. A woman from Philadelphia wrote, ‘I’m engaged to a Marine I haven’t seen for two years. Your picture shows me what he’s fighting for.’ A WAC stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, commented, ‘As a morale booster, it tops any lectures or speeches we’ve had to listen to. So many have boyfriends thousands of miles away and we’re hoping that ‘There’ll Come a Day,’ (a popular song of the era), while a soldier stationed in England wrote, ‘The pictures to a lot of fellows over here symbolize a hope and dream that we soon may be able to realize.’

“The impact of the campaign was so profound that it was featured in the May 14, 1945 ‘Speaking of Pictures’ segment of LIFE magazine. The sentimental advertisements had started a new kind of pin-up craze. At Oneida Ltd., a staff of 15 women was required to mail more than 500,000 requests for reprints of the advertisement's beautiful illustrations, which were being hung on the walls of girl's dormitories in high schools and colleges.”

As I was photographing and researching my 10 posters, the reprints mentioned above, it occurred to me that if the campaign was running today, Oneida would most certainly be taken to task for what the posters didn’t include – African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics and same-sex couples. All the posters – at least the ones I have – feature Caucasians. Nor did any feature a woman returning home but many women did serve proudly and with distinction, including my mother-in-law, a WAVE.

Who saved the 10 posters I was lucky enough to buy years ago? A young woman whose boyfriend made it home so they could marry and live happily ever after? A woman whose man was killed and who never married ... or who married someone else but never forgot the love of her life? I'll never know.

Below for your viewing pleasure are my  “Back Home for Keeps” posters. Notice how the illustrator captured a moment that perfectly expressed the hopes and dreams of not only millions of women who were terrified they would never see their boyfriends, husbands, sons and brothers again, but of every American who wanted nothing more than for their boy to come home safe and sound … and for keeps.