OWI

In 1942, president Franklin D. Roosevelt embarked on a mission to educate the masses on the reasons America was fighting in World War 2. And thus, Executive Order 9182 was passed, and the OWI was born.

The OWI, or Office of War Information as it was called, was created from the fear that the general public did not know enough about the war, or were motivated for the wrong reasons. Many Americans were furious at the attacks on Pearl Harbor that happened just a couple months earlier. But the OWI was there to remind them that Americans were fighting more than just to pack the Japanese; they were fighting against fascism. With this in mind, the OWI used the press, radio, and film to "give the conflict an ideological meaning, while seeking to avoid the nationalist hysteria of World War 1." It reminded people what it meant to be an American, as well as the ideals that build the foundation of this country. It was Patriotism vs. Nationalism. One of the main things that they promoted were the Four Freedoms, saying that Americans were entitled to:



Roosevelt envisioned a world founded on these four freedoms. He said that these embodied "the rights of men of every creed and every race, wherever they live, [and made clear] the crucial difference between ourselves and the enemies we face today."

However, these rights certainly didn't apply to the 110,000 Japanese Americans sent to wartime camps. And Blacks were still being treated as second-class citizens. It was this hypocrisy that was used as fuel for anti-American sentiment in other countries. If Americans are so against Nazi ideals of racial purity and inborn superiority, why are Blacks treated so differently than Whites? And it supported the Japanese claim that they were fighting to "defend the rights of non-white peoples against colonial rule and a racist United States."


What is most iconic and remembered today, are the cartoons and films produced in this era. According to Elmer Davis, who was the Director of the OWI, "The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most peoples minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize they are being propagandized."

Sources:
Foner, Eric - Give me liberty!: an American history/Eric Foner. - AP 3rd ed.

http://encyclopedia.densho.org/OWI/WRA_documentaries/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vLrTNKk89Q&t=433s