# Let's Talk About You! (1945), the Armed Forces Institute's $2 courses

Let's talk about you! is War Department Poster No. 28-1 of 1945 for the United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI). A smiling woman holding her glasses faces the viewer, and the text offers soldiers more than 300 correspondence courses, with all costs paid for $2 (NAID 514886).

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      Let's talk about you!

      Let's Talk About You! (1945), the Armed Forces Institute's $2 courses
      Let's Talk About You! (1945): War Department Poster No. 28-1 offers soldiers more than 300 USAFI correspondence courses, all costs paid for $2.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Transfer
      Date1945Made byWar Department, United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI)MediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514886; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) War Department, United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI). National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1280 (NAID 514886).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Let's talk about you! is War Department Poster No. 28-1 of 1945 for the United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI). A smiling woman holding her glasses faces the viewer, and the text offers soldiers more than 300 correspondence courses, with all costs paid for $2 (NAID 514886).

## A friendly face and a course catalog

A smiling woman in a polka-dot blouse holds her glasses and looks at the viewer beside the words "Let's talk about you!" A blue panel shows a helmeted soldier. The rest of the poster is an offer, and an unusually specific one: subjects, a price, an address and a note on academic credit.

Let's talk about you!

Think today about the job you want later. Prepare for it now. USAFI offers you excellent business, technical and vocational courses. Choose your subject. Enroll today.

What would you like to learn, Soldier?

USAFI offers more than 300 college, high school and trade courses. Work you complete can be submitted for academic credit in civilian schools. $2 pays all costs. See your information-education officer or librarian for the USAFI catalog, or write direct: USAFI, Madison 3, Wisconsin.

[...]

WAR DEPARTMENT POSTER NO. 28-1

Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image; the institute's name, the printing imprint and the distribution line are cut here. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514886, local id 44-PA-1280, Record Group 44.

## Marked for no overseas distribution

The poster is a War Department sheet for the United States Armed Forces Institute, printed by the Government Printing Office in 1945. Its distribution line is small and FRAME reads it as printed. It lists Army commands and classes of installations by abbreviation, each with a count of copies, and it ends "(No overseas distribution)". FRAME records the audience as "Own forces" and the purpose as "Mobilize or secure compliance".

## An offer a soldier could weigh

The archive calls the technique faint and tags only transfer: an attractive woman's friendly address is lent to the offer. On the archive's reading, that is the whole of the persuasion. Everything else on the sheet is information a reader could check: the number of courses, the price, the address in Madison, the office to ask, and the statement that finished work could be submitted for academic credit in civilian schools.

The poster also talks about the soldier's life after the war. "Think today about the job you want later" treats him as a man with a future of his own, not only as a member of a unit. For a government poster aimed at its own troops, that is a respectful frame. Enrollment was offered, not ordered, at a stated price of $2.

Other sheets aimed at soldiers' futures on this site include the War Department's Margie Poster SP No. 1, which urges men to save their pay for a home. The Roosevelt administration essay describes the Army's own information work, including the orientation films made for soldiers.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Let's talk about you!, 1945. War Department, United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI), War Department Poster No. 28-1. 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-1280, NAID 514886, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026.

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/lets-talk-about-you-usafi-1945/