Let's Get This Shield Up is a Treasury War Finance Division display card for the 4th War Loan, dated 1944 in the catalog. It shows a "We bought extra war bonds" shield in a house window and asks the reader to put one up too (NAID 514868).
What the card prints
This is a wide card meant for display, not a tall street poster. The picture is a window of a house with a shield hung in it. The shield's own lettering is the first thing the transcription records, and the call to the reader comes after it.
WE BOUGHT EXTRA WAR BONDS
4TH WAR LOAN
...LET'S GET THIS
SHIELD UP!
BUY EXTRA WAR BONDS TODAY
[imprint:] ☆ U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O—563251 WFD 878
The catalog date is 1944. The Government Printing Office line on the card reads 1943. Both numbers are on the record, and this page does not choose between them. A print order can predate the drive it serves.
Who issued it
The maker line is the U.S. Treasury Department, War Finance Division. The imprint line ends "WFD 878," which reads as a War Finance Division number. The archive files the purpose as fundraising and the audience as the domestic public.
How to read it
The card does not argue for bonds. It argues from the neighbors. A shield in one window turns into a question for every window without one. That is the bandwagon tag the archive gives it, and the tag fits.
Nothing here was compulsory. A war loan bought by free citizens is a fair way to pay for a declared war, and the Treasury had every right to ask. The honest point is the method. The shield is a public marker of private finances. It makes a voluntary act visible to the street, and a visible gap invites the pressure the law did not impose. A reader can admire the drive and still notice that.
The bond campaigns sit beside the posters indexed on the Office of War Information hub. Later loans on this site include the 5th War Loan farm-family sheet and the 6th War Loan stretcher photograph. This site keeps a Roosevelt administration essay.
Sources
- FRAME object record, Let's get this shield up! Buy extra war bonds today - 4th War Loan, 1944. U.S. Treasury Department, War Finance Division. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, NAID 514868, 44-PA-1262, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
