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A striking World War II home front propaganda poster emphasizing industrial safety as a patriotic contribution to the Allied war effort, linking workplace caution with the symbolic defeat of Axis leaders.
Issued by the War Production Board through the Office for Emergency Management, this poster was designed to instill a culture of vigilance and discipline among American war industry workers. The upper portion of the composition features three muscular, stylized laborers, rendered in a dynamic, red-toned silhouette against a backdrop of factory smokestacks and searchlights—iconography that evokes both battlefield and production front. Below, the poster’s slogan, “Every No-Accident Day is a Shot at the Axis,” directly equates personal responsibility in industrial settings with military success.
The bottom half of the poster features a calendar grid for the month, composed of 31 squares, each containing caricatures of Axis leaders—Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito. These grotesque depictions follow the visual conventions of wartime satire and dehumanization. Workers were encouraged to mark off each accident-free day by “X-ing out” one of the enemy faces, literally erasing the Axis threat through collective safety and productivity.
During World War II, the War Production Board coordinated the mobilization of American industry, emphasizing the unbroken output of munitions, vehicles, and military goods. Industrial accidents—often frequent in the high-speed, high-stress environments of wartime factories and shipyards—threatened to derail production goals.
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