Brotherhood Week is OWI Poster No. 33, a text-only 1943 sheet announcing the week of February 19 to 28, 1943. A statement signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt says the nation is fighting for men to live together as one family rather than as masters and slaves (NAID 513813).
The text
Without an image, the sheet is a heading, a date range, one paragraph, and a signature. The paragraph is four sentences long.
BROTHERHOOD WEEK
FEBRUARY 19th to 28th, 1943
We are fighting for the right of men to live together as members of one family rather than as masters and slaves. We are fighting that the spirit of brotherhood which we prize in this country may be practiced here and by free men everywhere. It is our promise to extend such brotherhood earthwide which gives hope to all the world. The war makes the appeal of Brotherhood Week stronger than ever.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
[imprint:] 505580—O—GPO
OWI Poster No. 33. Additional copies may be had upon request from the Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information, Washington, D. C.
Who issued it
The Office of War Information numbered it 33 in its poster series, and the words are credited to Roosevelt. Record Group 44 at the National Archives holds the surviving copy. The archive classes it as a state sheet for the domestic public, meant to win support, under the home front and race and ethnicity. The sheet does not say who organized Brotherhood Week itself, and the record does not either. Nor does it say how the week was observed, or by whom; all the poster supplies is the date range and the president's words.
How to read it
The archive tags glittering generalities and testimonial. Both fit. Brotherhood, freedom and hope are ideals no reader would oppose, and the sheet ties them to no program, law, or group. The president's name is the authority.
The ideals are good ones, and the second sentence is the most interesting: it says brotherhood should be "practiced here," which concedes that practice at home was a goal as well as a boast. That is the standard the sheet sets, and it is fair to hold the government to it. The week opened on February 19, 1943, one year to the day after Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, and the exclusion of Americans of Japanese descent made under that order was still in force. The Roosevelt administration essay covers that order, and the 1942 exclusion notice shows one of the sheets that carried it out. A poster about one family of men and a policy of removal by ancestry came from the same government.
Other sheets that carry the president's signed words include OWI Poster No. 40 and the 1942 Americans All. The Office of War Information hub covers the series.
Sources
- FRAME object record, Brotherhood Week, 1943. Office of War Information (text by Franklin D. Roosevelt), OWI Poster No. 33.
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-363, NAID 513813, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
