"Americans Will Always Fight for Liberty" Poster

This poster, produced by the United States Office of War Information (OWI) during the Second World War (1939-1945), makes a direct link between the Revolutionary War and the fight against the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan). In this image, a column of American GIs marches past a ragged line of Continental Army soldiers at Valley Forge, over whom General George Washington’s Headquarters Flag (now in the collection of the Museum of the American Revolution) waves. This stirring image encouraged Americans of the 1940s to see themselves as the latest of many generations who had struggled and sacrificed in the name of Liberty. Artist Bernard Perlin (1918-2014), the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, used American soldiers as models for the painting from which this poster was produced. A larger version of the poster hung in Union Station in Washington, D.C., during the Second World War.