# American Elections, No. 1: explaining the 1964 vote to Japanese readers

American Elections, No. 1 is a Japanese-and-English poster that the U.S. Information Agency distributed in Tokyo, catalog date 12 October 1964, signed United States Information Service. Under a photograph of Abraham Lincoln it calls elections the basis of democratic politics and asks how a presidential election works in a two-party country (NAID 6949283).

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      American Elections poster, No. 1 (Japanese-English poster distributed in Tokyo)

      American Elections, No. 1: explaining the 1964 vote to Japanese readers
      An October 1964 USIS poster for Tokyo began a series on U.S. elections with Lincoln's portrait, a classroom, a campaign crowd and a polling place. NAID

## Techniques named on the archive record

Glittering generalitiesTransfer
      DateOctober 12, 1964Made byU.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East seriesMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeJohnson AdministrationNARANAID 6949283; Record Group 306SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives (NARA), Record Group 306, Posters in Asia, Latin America, Middle East , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306) U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, October 12, 1964. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 6949283, 306-PPB-358).
      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

  American Elections, No. 1 is a Japanese-and-English poster that the U.S. Information Agency distributed in Tokyo, catalog date 12 October 1964, signed United States Information Service. Under a photograph of Abraham Lincoln it calls elections the basis of democratic politics and asks how a presidential election works in a two-party country (NAID 6949283).

## What it shows

This is the first sheet of a series. The archive describes a Japanese headline over a photograph of Lincoln, then a classroom lesson on government, a large campaign crowd at Texarkana, and voters lined up at a polling place. A short paragraph of Japanese text sets the question the series will answer.

アメリカの選挙

第16代大統領 エブラハム・リンカーン

[...]

民主主義の国アメリカの政治のありかたは、リンカーンの「人民の、人民による、人民のための政治」という言葉に象徴されている。そしてこのような政治の基礎となっているのが選挙であり、そのなかで最も重要なものが4年毎の大統領選挙である。二大政党制の国アメリカで、それはどのようにして行なわれるのであろうか。

[...]

AMERICAN ELECTIONS 1

UNITED STATES INFORMATION SERVICE

[in photograph:] TEXARKANA; KENNEDY-JOHNSON

Excerpts from the FRAME transcription, read from the image and not independently checked. FRAME's English rendering (machine translation, not verified by a fluent reader): "The way of politics in democratic America is symbolised by Lincoln's words 'government of the people, by the people, for the people'. The foundation of such politics is elections, and the most important of them is the presidential election every four years. In America, a country of two major parties, how is it carried out?" Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 6949283, item 306-PPB-358.

## Issuer and audience

The sheet is signed in English, "United States Information Service," and the archive codes it as openly sourced. It sits in the National Archives series of posters distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, Record Group 306. The audience is a foreign public. The archive describes sheet No. 1 only.

## How to read it

FRAME tags glittering generalities and transfer: Lincoln's authority is attached to the electoral system as a whole. The tag fits, and this is a mild use of the technique. The sheet does not tell a Japanese reader whom to favor. It describes a process and asks a question about it.

A sign in the Texarkana crowd reads "KENNEDY-JOHNSON." The record does not date the crowd photograph, and the text around it names no current candidate. It is the only party sign in the transcription, and it belongs to the Democratic ticket of 1960; no Republican sign appears.

An earlier sheet in the same vein is Elections U.S.A.: The Candidates from 1956, which gave both tickets equal space. At home, Johnson's campaign spot "Daisy" is dated a month before this poster. The agency's other sheets are collected on the USIA overseas posters hub.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, American Elections poster, No. 1 (Japanese-English poster distributed in Tokyo), 12 October 1964. U.S. Information Agency (signed United States Information Service). The English translation in the record is a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.

- U.S. National Archives, Record Group 306, NAID 6949283 (306-PPB-358), retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/american-elections-poster-no-1-japanese-tokyo-1964/