# To Make Men Free, John Falter's WAVES recruiting poster To Make Men Free is a 1944 U.S. Navy recruiting poster for the WAVES, signed John Falter, USNR. A woman in a Navy cap stands before the flag, and a quoted line promises "the gratitude of a nation when victory is ours" (NAID 513691). - Home - Archive - To Make Men Free, John Falter's WAVES recruiting poster To make men free To Make Men Free, John Falter's WAVES recruiting poster 1944 Navy WAVES recruiting poster signed John Falter, USNR, Order No. 74. A woman in uniform before the flag; "Enlist in the WAVES today." NAID 513691. ## Techniques named on the archive record Glittering generalitiesTransfer Date1944Made byU.S. Navy (artist John Falter, USNR)MediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 513691; 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) U.S. Navy (artist John Falter, USNR). National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-249 (NAID 513691). 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 To Make Men Free is a 1944 U.S. Navy recruiting poster for the WAVES, signed John Falter, USNR. A woman in a Navy cap stands before the flag, and a quoted line promises "the gratitude of a nation when victory is ours" (NAID 513691). ## What the poster prints A single woman in Navy uniform and cap fills the front of the sheet. A large flag sits behind her. The text has a headline, a short quotation, and an instruction, and the small print carries the Navy's order code. TO MAKE MEN FREE ..."you will share the gratitude of a nation when victory is ours" ENLIST IN THE WAVES TODAY [on cap: U.S. NAVY] [signature: JOHN FALTER USNR] [imprint: ORDER NO. 74] [imprint: NAVPERS-NRB-41986-2 May 44-61M] Transcription in the FRAME record. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 513691, Record Group 44, local id 44-PA-249. ## Who issued it The U.S. Navy issued it. The painter, John Falter, signed with "USNR," the Naval Reserve, so the artist was himself a Navy reservist. The NAVPERS line is the Navy's own form code, and the "May 44" inside it fits the archive's 1944 date. The quoted line has no speaker on the sheet. The archive does not name one, and this page will not guess. ## How to read it The archive tags it glittering generalities and transfer. "To make men free" is about as broad as a war aim can be, and the flag behind the recruit lends her its standing. The quotation adds a reward: gratitude after victory. It is the only promise on the sheet, and it is not a material one. There is something to admire in the restraint. The poster does not show combat, does not threaten, and does not caricature an enemy. It asks a woman to enlist for a cause stated in the language of liberty. Whether the nation kept the promise of gratitude is a fair question for a later reader; the poster could not answer it. A libertarian reader may also note the title's irony without sneering at it. The same government asking women to serve "to make men free" was, in the same years, holding Japanese American families in camps; that record is on the internment page. Both facts belong to 1944. For other women's service sheets, see Join the WAC Now! and the Army Nurse Corps poster. The Office of War Information hub indexes the wider program. Falter's title speaks of freedom. The Roosevelt administration essay holds the period's talk of freedom, from the Four Freedoms set onward, against Executive Order 9066 and the censorship office. ## Sources - FRAME object record, To make men free, 1944. U.S. Navy (artist John Falter, USNR). U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, NAID 513691, 44-PA-249, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/to-make-men-free-waves-1944/