Harvest war crops is a 1945 War Food Administration poster for the Women's Land Army of the U.S. Crop Corps, signed Morley and distributed by the Office of War Information. A smiling woman in a yellow blouse with a WLA badge reaches up to pick peaches (NAID 514440).
The picture and the words
The figure is a single woman. She wears a yellow blouse with a badge lettered WLA, smiles, and reaches up to pick peaches. The headline is three words. The smaller lines tell the reader which organization she belongs to, and where to go to join it.
Harvest war crops
THE WOMEN'S LAND ARMY
OF THE U.S. CROP CORPS
WLA
[signature: MORLEY]
SEE YOUR COUNTY EXTENSION AGENT OR LOCAL FARM EMPLOYMENT OFFICE
DISTRIBUTED BY OWI FOR WFA
[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1945-O-637277]
WAR FOOD ADMINISTRATION
Two agencies on one sheet
The War Food Administration is the issuer. The Office of War Information is credited only with distribution, in the line "Distributed by OWI for WFA." The artist signed as Morley, and the record gives no first name. The Government Printing Office job number dates the printing to 1945. The archive files the purpose as recruitment, aimed at the domestic public, under home-front and gender themes. It gives no print run.
The split credit is worth noticing. The agency that wanted the farm workers is the issuer; the information office moved the paper. The Office of War Information hub describes that office, and the case study of its domestic branch covers the office's home-front side.
How it persuades
Two tags appear in the record: transfer and plain folks. "War crops" is the transfer: fruit picking is named as war work and borrows its urgency. The smiling worker is the plain-folks half, ordinary labour done by someone who looks glad to be doing it.
The picture is an idealized one. Nothing on the sheet says what the hours were, what the pay was, or how long the season ran. A reader would have to ask. The sheet at least says exactly where.
What it asks for is voluntary. It does not threaten, and it names no enemy. It asks women to take farm work and names two local places to ask: the county extension agent and the farm employment office. Compare the War Manpower Commission's There's Work to Be Done, which sent women to the U.S. Employment Service, and Harry Truman's message about food, printed as a poster the same year.
Sources
- FRAME object record, Harvest war crops, the Women's Land Army of the U.S. Crop Corps, 1945. War Food Administration, distributed by the Office of War Information (artist Morley). Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-934, NAID 514440, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026.
