# Truman's 1945 food message, printed as a poster A Message About Food from the President of the United States is a 1945 Government Printing Office sheet carrying a printed Harry Truman signature. It asks every American to grow, preserve, and conserve food, and it ends on the line "There can be no lasting peace in a hungry world" (NAID 513731). - Home - Archive - Truman's 1945 food message, printed as a poster A message about food from the President of the United States Truman's 1945 food message, printed as a poster 1945 text-only poster signed by Harry Truman asking Americans to garden, can, and waste no food for "the final victory and the peace." NARA NAID 513731. ## Techniques named on the archive record Glittering generalities Date1945Made byThe President of the United States of America (Harry S. Truman); U.S. Government Printing OfficeMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeTruman AdministrationNARANAID 513731; 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) The President of the United States. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-282 (NAID 513731). 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 A Message About Food from the President of the United States is a 1945 Government Printing Office sheet carrying a printed Harry Truman signature. It asks every American to grow, preserve, and conserve food, and it ends on the line "There can be no lasting peace in a hungry world" (NAID 513731). ## What the sheet prints There is no picture on this poster beyond the Great Seal at the head. Everything else is type, white on a dark blue ground, set out like a short proclamation and closed with Truman's signature in facsimile. The President speaks in the first person and makes three concrete requests. A MESSAGE ABOUT FOOD FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES In this fourth year of war the need for food is greater than ever before. I call upon every American to help increase the Nation's food supply . . . By growing larger and better victory gardens and seeing them through to the harvest. By preserving our food at home or in a community canning center. By conserving food in every possible way—wasting not an ounce. Our food will make a real contribution to the final victory and the peace. There can be no lasting peace in a hungry world. FRAME transcription of the 1945 sheet, signed "Harry Truman," imprint U.S. Government Printing Office 1945 O-654012. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NARA RG 44, 44-PA-282, NAID 513731. ## How to read it The archive tags the poster with glittering generalities and says the technique is faint. That is a fair reading. The persuasive weight sits on two abstractions at the bottom, "final victory" and "the peace," but the body of the sheet asks for specific, checkable acts: plant a garden, can at home or at a community center, throw nothing away. A citizen could do each of them or decline, and the poster names no penalty. The phrase "fourth year of war" places the message inside the war, not after it. The last sentence looks past the war, toward feeding a damaged world, and makes the household pantry part of that argument. A related 1946 sheet in the archive, a later food message under Truman's name, is not rewritten here. ## Issuer and rights The maker line is the President of the United States, printed by the Government Printing Office. The record classes the source as openly identified: the sheet says who is speaking, and it is who it says. The rights line is public domain as a U.S. government work, held in National Archives Record Group 44, the wartime poster file that also holds the Office of War Information sheets. For the domestic information office behind much of that file, see the OWI domestic branch study. ## Sources - FRAME object record, "A message about food from the President of the United States," 1945. The President of the United States (Harry S. Truman); U.S. Government Printing Office. - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-282, NAID 513731, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/message-about-food-president-1945/