Keep Calm and Carry On and other Second World War Posters
British Home Front Propaganda Posters of the Second World War
If you haven’t already come across this book, it’s a great mix of text & picture. I hadn’t realised there was an exhibition in London, running til next Thursday – wonder if I can managed to nip out and see it… nipping doesn’t seem to be operative, as it’s in Camden Town and I’m in Pimlico. Hmm, we’ll see… Always great to see the original posters!
London Transport Posters: A Century of Art and Design OK, so maybe I’m going for the easy entries over the next few days, but I’ve got plenty to add on bits and pieces. I tried to get my original research material out from storage today, but it’s going to have to wait…. I have lots materially digitally stored!
London Transport Museum’s Exhibition ‘The Art of the Poster‘ finished last week, and was accompanied by the book London Transport Posters: A Century of Art and Design, for which I wrote a chapter (finishing as much as I could do in an internet cafe in Melbourne, Australia!). London Transport Museum are notoriously protective of their copyright, so it was a great chance to continue some research on further posters… I still get excited when I see a poster I’ve not seen before, or even one I have seen before making it’s way into the modern public domain… such as the Keep Calm and Carry On posters! My thesis focused largely on posters produced by the Ministry of Information, but they called upon the expertise of organisations such as London Transport and Shell in the formation of the Ministry of Information, as these organisations had demonstrated a proficiency in publicity. It was also interesting to study First World War posters, to which I’d referred in my thesis (noting that they were far more King & Country whereas the Second World War was a much more democratic effort), as the chapter was about wartime posters, not just the Second World War. LTM had been working on digitising their poster collection whilst I was doing my PhD research, and the materials launched online whilst I was writing this chapter. My PhD research had turned up some really interesting information which the London Transport archives didn’t have (and I spent some time both in Covent Garden and the main archives, along with the V&A, and we had meetings out at Acton… some great materials stored there), so really felt I made a good contribution. My chapter ended up as a joint publication as David Bownes completed it whilst I was hopping around New Zealand, before I proof read it in the midst of Bolivia, after a great day blowing up dynamite in the silver mines, before returning in time for the book/exhibition launch in October!
Further Resources (in no particular order)
I had a great day at Media Training with Chantal Cooke from Passion for the Planet, arranged through Nick Williams.
As my thesis demonstrates, I have always been fascinated by communications and the media, and I was interested to gain the perspective of an expert on the day. I found the day very valuable, and decided that I would focus my media attention on what I knew best – Second World War Posters! I struggled to write my press release, thinking of too many ideas and trying to add in information that academics may care about, but press editors don’t. Chantal, however, was determined that none of us would go home without the outline of a press release, and really helped draw my ideas out.
The day also included a “radio interview”, and you can hear my recording here: Chantal Cooke interviews Bex (MP3, 4.22MB, sub-5 minutes). Please note the information re: the information I gave about NHS re-use of leaflets was true from about 5 years before, but it was the thought that came into my head at the time!
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