Keep 'Em Rolling!
Artist
Leo Lionni
1910 - 1999
Publisher
Office of Emergency Management
Date1941
MediumOffset Lithograph
Dimensions40 x 29 3/4 in. (101.6 x 75.6 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.864
DescriptionThis is one in a set of four posters created by Italian émigré designer Leo Lionni. Printed in 1941 by the Office for Emergency Management, these images predate America’s entry into the war in December of that year. While officially neutral at this point, the United States had instituted the Lend-Lease Act in March that allowed the country to send munitions to England for the government to “borrow.” President Roosevelt claimed that providing Great Britain with these weapons was an extension of national defense and kept the conflict from coming to the United States. The posters feature a variety of American-made supplies, including an antiaircraft gun, a M2 light tank, a T1 motor torpedo boat, and a Bell P-39 Aircobra. These photographs were most likely taken from promotional military materials and have little relationship to what was actually sent abroad. Accompanying them are images of American workers who were essential to building these munitions—in fact, once the Lend-Lease program went into effect and factory work increased, unemployment was reduced to less than 10 percent for the first time since the beginning of the Depression. On View
Not on view
