In the strength of great hope we must shoulder our common load is a 1945 Victory Loan poster of the U.S. Treasury, WFD 32. A painted portrait of an older man in round glasses sits above the quotation, and a family of five walks a lit path toward a cross with a wreath (NAID 514621).
A portrait above, a family below
A large painted portrait of an older man in round glasses fills the top of the sheet. Beneath it is a quotation in quotation marks. At the bottom, a family of five stands on a lit path that leads toward a cross with a wreath. The rest is the Treasury's sales line and its marks.
“In the strength of great hope
we must shoulder our common load.”
BUY VICTORY BONDS
VICTORY
LOAN
[signature: illegible, lower right, possibly "c. c. bell"]
[imprint: U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1945—O—662911]
AN OFFICIAL U.S. TREASURY POSTER
WFD 32
Printed for the Victory Loan
The poster calls itself "AN OFFICIAL U.S. TREASURY POSTER" and carries the number WFD 32 and a Government Printing Office job number for 1945. The artist's signature at lower right is illegible; the transcription offers "c. c. bell" as a possible reading and no more. FRAME sets the purpose to "Fundraise" and the audience to "Domestic public". The National Archives holds the sheet in Record Group 44, World War II Posters.
Whose words are these?
The transcription prints no name under the quotation, and FRAME's record does not identify the man in the portrait. The archive describes the technique as testimonial, "a quoted public figure backing the sale", without saying which figure. No name is offered here; a wrong guess would put words in a real person's mouth.
The second technique tag is transfer. The cross and the wreath are memorial images, and the family walking toward them attaches that memorial to the purchase of a bond. The quotation asks for a shared burden, which is a fair way to describe paying for a war. A bond was a loan, voluntary on its stated terms, and asking citizens to carry a common load by lending is more honest than hiding the cost.
The war bonds hub lists the numbered loans in order and ends the sequence with the Victory Loan of 1945. Another 1945 Victory Bonds sheet on this site is Hasten the Homecoming, reproduced from a Norman Rockwell cover, where a soldier comes home to his neighbors instead of a cross. The 7th War Loan flag raising poster comes from the drive listed just before it.
Sources
- FRAME object record, In the strength of great hope we must shoulder our common load. Buy Victory Bonds, 1945. U.S. Treasury Department (Victory Loan); artist signature illegible. 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-1094, NAID 514621, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026.
