Freedom from Fear

A color illustration featuring of a man and a woman standing next to a bed with two children sleeping on it. The mother is tucking the children in while the father watches the scene and holds a newspaper of which a partial headline regarding deaths due to bombings is visible. Dark gray text above and below the image reads: OURS. . . to fight for / FREEDOM FROM FEAR. The artwork is by Norman Rockwell. In the lower right, directly under the illustration is the credit line: Painting from the Saturday Evening Post. Additional small text in the bottom margin of the poster reads: OWI Poster No. 46 Additional copies may be obtained upon request from the Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information, Washington, D. C. / U. S. Government Printing Office : 1943-O-511887.
MO 2005.13.40.8.5.
After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the nation was united in anger against its enemies. But President Roosevelt wanted Americans to see the war effort as more than an act of revenge or self-defense.

Long before America entered, the conflict, he had begun to frame World War II in more universal terms—as a struggle to defend freedom around the world. His most enduring expression of this concept came in a January 6, 1941, speech to Congress. “In the future days, which we seek to make secure,” he declared, “we look forward to world founded on four essential human freedoms.” Roosevelt defined these as: “freedom of speech and expression”, “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way”, “freedom from want”, and “freedom from fear.”

Inspired by the President’s words, artist Norman Rockwell translated the “Four Freedoms” into a series of four paintings that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post magazine in 1943. Rockwell’s powerful paintings struck a chord with the public and help to popularize the Four Freedoms. They were featured in an OWI poster series and a national tour of the original paintings in 1943-1944 helped raise nearly $133 million in war bonds. FDR thanked Rockwell for “bringing home to the plain, everyday citizen the plain, everyday truths behind the Four Freedoms.”