# Absence Makes the War Last Longer (1943), bulletin board placard No. 25

Absence makes the war last longer is Bulletin Board Placard No. 25, printed in 1943 in the name of "Your Production Committee." A cartoon man sleeps in bed beside an alarm clock, over the headline and the order "Stay on the job!" (NAID 513748).

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- Absence Makes the War Last Longer (1943), bulletin board placard No. 25

      Absence makes the war last longer

      Absence Makes the War Last Longer (1943), bulletin board placard No. 25
      Bulletin Board Placard No. 25 (1943): a sleeping worker beside an alarm clock, and the line "Absence makes the war last longer. Stay on the job!"

## Techniques named on the archive record

Fear appeal
      Date1943Made byYour Production Committee (Bulletin Board Placard No. 25)MediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 513748; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) Your Production Committee. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-301 (NAID 513748).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Absence makes the war last longer is Bulletin Board Placard No. 25, printed in 1943 in the name of "Your Production Committee." A cartoon man sleeps in bed beside an alarm clock, over the headline and the order "Stay on the job!" (NAID 513748).

## The placard

A man is asleep in bed, and an alarm clock sits beside him. That is the whole picture. The headline is a play on words, and the committee's instruction follows.

ABSENCE

makes the war

last longer

YOUR PRODUCTION COMMITTEE SAYS:

Stay on the job!

[signature: illegible]

[imprint:] BULLETIN BOARD PLACARD NO. 25

[imprint:] U.S. Government Printing Office : 1943-O-509094

Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 513748, local id 44-PA-301, Record Group 44.

## Whose voice it uses

The placard speaks as "Your Production Committee," and it was printed by the Government Printing Office in 1943 as number 25 in a bulletin board series. The archive classes the issuer as mixed, the audience as war-plant workers among the domestic public, and the purpose as securing compliance, under labor and the home front. The National Archives holds it in Record Group 44. The artist's signature is illegible, and no print run is recorded. The archive also holds the next two placards, credited to War Production Drive Headquarters: No. 26, "Beware!," and No. 27, "If the Absentee Bugs bite you ... Tell us."

## How to read it

The archive tags a mild fear appeal. One worker's day in bed is linked to a longer war. The harm is staged as the result of a personal choice, and the remedy is simply to show up.

Two choices stand out. First, the voice. The sheet came off a federal press, but it speaks as the reader's own plant committee, so the order to stay on the job sounds like it comes from colleagues rather than Washington. Second, the cause. The cartoon offers one reason for absence, sleeping in. The War Production Board's own leaflet of the same year, Days Off Cost Lives!, listed illness, accidents, housing, transport, child care and ration-board hours as reasons workers missed shifts. A worker who missed a day because a child was sick or a bus did not come would find no sympathy on this placard.

Asking free workers to come in is fair. Implying that an absent worker is prolonging the war, without asking why, puts the whole cost on the individual. The 1944 Army poster Stay on the Job to Finish the Job made the same request with a soldier's face. The Roosevelt administration essay sets out who held which power after Pearl Harbor.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Absence makes the war last longer, 1943. Your Production Committee (Bulletin Board Placard No. 25).

- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-301, NAID 513748, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/absence-makes-the-war-last-longer-1943/