Invent for Victory, the Commerce Department's call for ideas

Invent for victory is a 1941 Government Printing Office poster for the National Inventors Council of the U.S. Department of Commerce, signed by the artist Elmo White. A drafting board with a tank blueprint sits beside warplanes, a tank, anti-aircraft guns and a warship under an orange sky (NAID 514631).

A drafting board and the machines it feeds

At the left, a drafting board holds a tank blueprint and a set square. Beside it, against an orange sky, are Army fighters, a tank, anti-aircraft guns and a warship. The fuselages carry the words "U.S. ARMY," which the archive transcribes as part of the image. The headline is red, and the request below it is a single long sentence.

INVENT for VICTORY

ALL AMERICANS WHO HAVE AN INVENTION OR AN IDEA WHICH MIGHT BE USEFUL TO THEIR COUNTRY ARE URGED TO SEND IT IMMEDIATELY TO

NATIONAL INVENTORS COUNCIL

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE-WASHINGTON, D.C.

[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

[signature:] Elmo White

An open invitation, with open questions

The FRAME catalog tags glittering generalities and bandwagon, and lists the purpose as "Mobilize or secure compliance." "Victory" is the abstract goal. "All Americans" is the bandwagon: everyone is invited, so everyone is implicated.

The request asks for ideas rather than money or silence, and it treats the ordinary citizen as a possible source of useful ideas. That is a flattering and fairly democratic premise: the government admits it does not have every answer.

What the sheet leaves out is just as plain. It does not say what happens to an idea once it reaches Washington, whether the sender keeps any patent rights, whether anyone will be paid, or how a submission is judged. A citizen sending an invention to a federal council would want to know who owns it afterward. The poster asks for the idea "IMMEDIATELY" and answers none of those questions. How many people wrote in is not on the record.

Who issued it

The National Inventors Council is named on the sheet as part of the Department of Commerce, and the Government Printing Office imprint marks it as a federal printing. The artist signed as Elmo White. For another federal appeal of the same year, aimed at skilled workers rather than inventors, see the Civil Service Commission's America Arms! Both belong to the government described in the Roosevelt administration essay.