The Atlantic Charter (1943), OWI Poster No. 50 prints eight points in full
OWI Poster No. 50 (1943) prints the Atlantic Charter's eight points in full under the names of Roosevelt and Churchill, dated August 14, 1941. NAID 513885.
Techniques named on the archive record
Glittering generalities
Date
1943
Made by
Office of War Information (OWI Poster No. 50)
Medium
Poster
Country
United States
Regime
Roosevelt Administration
NARA
NAID 513885; Record Group 44
Source
Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026
Source
Public domain (U.S. government work) Office of War Information (OWI Poster No. 50). National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-426 (NAID 513885).
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.
The Atlantic Charter is OWI Poster No. 50, a 1943 Government Printing Office sheet that reproduces the full text of the joint statement signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston S. Churchill and dated August 14, 1941. There is no picture; the eight numbered points are the poster (NAID 513885).
A document hung as a poster
This poster has no slogan and no picture. It prints a diplomatic text whole, from its preamble to the two signatures and the date. The text is dated August 14, 1941; the Government Printing Office imprint dates this printing to 1943. Two of the eight points are quoted here.
THE Atlantic Charter
[...]
3. They respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.
[...]
6. After the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.
[...]
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
August 14, 1941
Principles, and how far they reach
The archive tags glittering generalities, and the label fits the phrases that carry the weight: "freedom from fear and want," "the right of all peoples to choose," "the abandonment of the use of force." The two signatures supply the authority. Its purpose field reads "Persuade or win support," and the audience is "Domestic public."
Unlike many general phrases on wartime posters, these are commitments that can be checked. Point 1 says the two countries "seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other." Point 3 says the two governments wish to see self-government restored to peoples forcibly deprived of it. A citizen who read the poster in 1943 was handed a standard to measure both governments by, including his own.
Measuring the government by its words
That is the useful thing about printing a document instead of a slogan. A slogan cannot be broken; a numbered promise can. Charles Alston's OWI cartoon A Second Emancipation Proclamation!!, prepared for distribution to the Black press, shows Roosevelt signing a paper marked "Atlantic Charter" with Lincoln behind him, and so ties the charter to emancipation. The Roosevelt administration essay holds the same government to its Four Freedoms and sets them beside Executive Order 9066 and the camps. The Four Freedoms posters carry the related phrases into pictures.
FRAME object record, The Atlantic Charter, 1943. Office of War Information (OWI Poster No. 50).
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-426, NAID 513885, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
