Be A Marine! poster

Object/Artifact

-

anonymous...

Name/Title

"Be A Marine!" poster

Entry/Object ID

5131A

Description

Original WWII recruitment poster - Be a Marine. Free a Marine to Fight U.S Marine Corps Women's Reserve This poster features an illustration of a woman in a US Marines uniform in front of soldiers charging into battle armed with rifle guns in the background, the bold red and black title text in stylized lettering below reads "Be a Marine...Free a marine to fight. U.S. Marine Corps Women's Reserve".

Context

Passed by Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve was established in 1943 to enable women to serve in the Navy and Marine Corps on the home front during the Second World War (since 1918 women worked in the Marines in administrative roles only); this wartime Reserve was demobilized in 1946 but in 1948 the Women's Armed Services Act was passed that enabled women to serve in the regular Marine Corps.

Collection

WRHS

Category

Poster

Made/Created

Manufacturer

United States Military

Date made

circa 1940

Time Period

WWII

Ethnography

Cultural Region

* Untyped Cultural Region

United States

Inscription/Signature/Marks

Transcription

Be a Marine... Free a Marine to fight U.S. Marine Corps Women's Reserve 1-28-43 REQ'N 4421 25M LITHO IN USA

Dimensions

Height

20 in

Width

14-1/16 in

Material

Paper

Interpretative Labels

Label Type

Object Label

Label

Lady Leathernecks (body) Beginning in 1942, some 20,000 women enlisted in the newly established Reserve Corps, freeing male marines for combat by serving as office and commissionary clerks, drivers, mechanics, parachute riggers, radio operators, and even arial-gunnery instructors.