Share your home with a war worker is a 1943 type-only poster with no picture: a navy banner reading "A WAR MESSAGE" over the request in large red capitals. The National Archives files it with the Office of War Information's posters, though no agency is named on the sheet (NAID 515396).
Ten words and an imprint
There is nothing to look at but type. The archive describes a navy banner above the request, which is set in large red capitals. The whole sheet reads, with its printer's line:
A WAR MESSAGE
SHARE
YOUR HOME
WITH A WAR
WORKER
[imprint: U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1943-O-537261]
What "share" means here
The poster's verb is "SHARE." The archive reads the request more concretely: householders were being asked to rent rooms to war workers during a war-housing shortage. The sheet itself says nothing about rent, room, shortage or where to sign up. It asks a family to open its house and leaves every term to them.
That matters for a reader who cares about property and consent. A homeowner who takes in a lodger by choice, on terms he sets, has done something generous and lawful. The poster asks for exactly that, and it asks; it does not cite a law or threaten a penalty. The banner "A WAR MESSAGE" lends the request an official tone, which is the faint glittering generality the archive tags. The purpose field reads "Mobilize or secure compliance," and the audience is "Domestic public."
Who sent it
The only maker's mark on the sheet is the Government Printing Office imprint, which dates the job to 1943. The archive attributes it to the Office of War Information through the National Archives series that holds it. No agency name, number or contact line is printed. A citizen reading it in 1943 could see that the government printed it, but not which office was asking.
The sheet is listed in this site's Office of War Information poster gallery, under the OWI hub. The case study of the OWI domestic branch follows the branch that issued posters and the writers who quit it in April 1943. A labor request of a different kind, OWI Poster No. 52, is The More Women at Work the Sooner We Win!
Sources
- FRAME object record, Share your home with a war worker, 1943. Office of War Information (attributed through the National Archives series; no agency named on the sheet).
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-1725, NAID 515396, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
