The June 14, 1943 cover of Life magazine, published by Time Inc., shows a smiling young woman in a white graduation gown and cap beside a young man in a dark gown, captioned High School Graduation. The National Archives holds it with its World War II posters (NAID 515281).
The cover
A magazine cover, not a government sheet. It is in black and white. A young woman in a white gown and cap smiles beside a young man in a dark gown, and the caption names the occasion. Everything else printed on the cover is masthead, date, price, and a library mark.
LIFE
HIGH SCHOOL
GRADUATION
U. S. Information Service Library
JUNE 14, 1943 10 CENTS
YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION $4.50
REG. U. S. PAT. OFF.
44-PA-1616
Why a magazine cover is in a poster file
Time Inc. published Life, and the cover carries no government agency's name. The copy the archive reproduces is held by the National Archives in Record Group 44, the World War II poster file, as item 44-PA-1616. The transcription shows a "U. S. Information Service Library" line and the 44-PA number on the cover itself. The record does not say how this copy came into government hands or how it was used there, and this page does not guess.
The archive gives the issuer type as media, the audience as the domestic public, and the purpose as reassurance. Its themes are the home front and media and information.
How to read it
The archive tags one technique, plain folks, and calls it faint. That is a fair reading. There is no slogan, no enemy, and no request. Two ordinary students finish school in a year of war, and the cover lets that stand as the news.
A free press choosing to run a calm, ordinary picture is not the same thing as a government ordering one. Nothing in the record shows that any agency asked for this cover. It belongs in a study of wartime persuasion because the archive reads its effect as reassurance, and a private magazine could supply that on its own judgment. Compare the government's own home-front sheets from the same year, such as Use It Up - Wear It Out - Make It Do!, which do make a request. For young men, the Army's own appeal ran on posters like the 1942 Men of 18 and 19. The Roosevelt administration essay describes the press the government worked beside.
Sources
- FRAME object record, Life, June 14, 1943, cover (High School Graduation). Life magazine (Time Inc.).
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-1616, NAID 515281, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
