Declare a Paper Holiday, the War Production Board asks shoppers

Declare a Paper Holiday for the Duration is a 1945 War Production Board poster. Under an eagle holding arrows, it asks shoppers not to have purchases wrapped and to save wrapping paper, bags, and waste paper, closing "Paper has gone to war" (NAID 514105).

What the poster prints

This is a type poster. An eagle with spread wings and a bundle of arrows sits at the top, and the rest is lettering in blue and red. It opens with a request a store clerk might make at the counter.

PLEASE DON'T ASK TO HAVE IT WRAPPED

DECLARE A

PAPER HOLIDAY

FOR THE DURATION

SAVE { WRAPPING PAPER

PAPER BAGS

WASTE PAPER

PAPER HAS GONE TO WAR

WAR PRODUCTION BOARD

[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1945 -O- 647280

Who issued it

The War Production Board is named at the foot. It was the federal agency over war materials, so the sheet comes from the office that set the priorities, not from a publicity bureau. No artist is named. The archive dates it 1945 and files the purpose as mobilizing compliance.

How to read it

The opening line was probably meant for a shop wall, where a customer would see it while paying. The words are polite: "please," and "don't ask." The rest turns a habit into a patriotic gesture. A "holiday" from wrapping sounds like a treat, not a sacrifice.

The archive tags it transfer and glittering generalities. The eagle and arrows are the transfer. "Paper has gone to war" is the generality: it gives no tonnage, no use, and no reason a bag at the grocer competes with a shell casing. The poster asks the shopper to trust that it does. Maybe it did. The sheet itself does not show the arithmetic, and a reader is entitled to notice.

What the sheet does not do is order anything. It asks customers to decline a service and leaves the choice with them. That is persuasion in a voluntary register, and it is the gentlest side of wartime economic control.

The household half of the paper drive is the 1944 Save Waste Paper poster. The wider federal poster effort is on the Office of War Information hub. The archive's index for the period is its Roosevelt administration page.