American Propaganda
Salvage Scrap to Blast the Jap, 1941 US poster: An eagle marked with the U.S. Army Air Forces star drops a bomb on a snake

Salvage Scrap to Blast the Jap

Salvage Scrap to Blast the Jap, a WPA poster for the Thirteenth Naval District

"Salvage scrap to blast the Jap": a WPA poster for the Navy's Thirteenth Naval District draws Japan as a snake under an eagle's bomb. Library of Congress.

Techniques named on the archive record

Name-calling
Date
1941
Made by
WPA Art Project poster for the Thirteenth Naval District, U.S. Navy
Medium
Poster
Country
United States
Regime
Roosevelt Administration
Source
Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (POS - WPA - WASH .P45, no. 1) , retrieved October 2, 2026
Source
Public domain (U.S. government work: WPA Federal Art Project poster for the U.S. Navy) Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (digital id cph.3b49009). Library of Congress rights statement: 'No known restrictions on publication.'

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

Salvage Scrap to Blast the Jap is a WPA Art Project poster made for the Thirteenth Naval District of the U.S. Navy and catalogued at 1941. An eagle marked with the Army Air Forces star drops a bomb on a snake in a rising-sun cap coiled over a region labelled "Occupied Territory." The Library of Congress holds it.

Eagle and snake

The slogan on this sheet uses an ethnic slur, and the drawing renders the enemy as a snake; both are quoted and described here as printed.

An eagle carrying the star of the U.S. Army Air Forces releases a bomb. Below it, a snake wearing a red cap with the rising-sun emblem lies coiled over part of a globe marked "Occupied Territory." The rhyme is on a banner, and the sheet names the Navy district it was made for.

WPA

OCCUPIED

TERRITORY

SALVAGE SCRAP

TO BLAST THE JAP

THIRTEENTH NAVAL DISTRICT ★ UNITED STATES NAVY

20

Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked. The record places "WPA" at upper left in the illustration and the number "20" at lower right in the margin. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. Library of Congress, POS - WPA - WASH .P45, no. 1.

A government sheet, start to finish

Some anti-Japanese posters of the period came from private companies. This one did not. The maker line names the WPA Art Project, a federal program, working for a Navy district, and the sheet prints both "WPA" and "UNITED STATES NAVY." The archive types the issuer as state and the purpose as "Mobilize or secure compliance."

The request underneath is ordinary: collect scrap metal for war production. The poster wraps that request in two attacks. The rhyme names an enemy people by a slur, not the government or the forces that made war. The drawing turns that people into a snake, an animal to be killed rather than an army to be beaten. The FRAME catalog tags name-calling and adds race and ethnicity to the themes, which is the right label.

When a federal agency prints a slur for a whole people, it teaches the line by ancestry with the authority of the state behind it. The record does not show where this sheet hung or what it changed, and this page claims neither. It is still wrong, and it was wrong when it was printed.

A private salvage cartoon from Chicago, Save Your Scraps to Bomb the Japs, used almost the same rhyme. The anti-Japanese hub and its poster gallery hold more, and the Roosevelt administration essay separates the sheets aimed at a regime from those aimed at a race.

Sources

  • FRAME object record, Salvage Scrap to Blast the Jap, catalogued at 1941. WPA Art Project poster for the Thirteenth Naval District, U.S. Navy.
  • Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Work Projects Administration Poster Collection, POS - WPA - WASH .P45, no. 1 (digital id cph.3b49009), retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work: WPA Federal Art Project poster for the U.S. Navy); Library of Congress rights statement: "No known restrictions on publication."