The United Nations Fight for Freedom

Propaganda poster of the newly proclaimed “United Nations.”

The international body known as the United Nations was initially conceptualized by President Franklin Roosevelt. The term was first used in an official declaration signed on January 1st, 1942, in which twenty six countries fighting the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis pledged to give their maximum support to the war effort and abstain from making any separate peace with the enemy. Later known as “The Declaration of the United Nations,” this important document globalized the Atlantic Charter and laid the foundation for the conference that would permanently establish the organization.

This propaganda poster was designed by the Office of Wartime Information and published by the Government Printing Office in 1942 to popularize the international agreement. The flags of thirty participating nations (Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines signed later and were not among the original 26) can be see under the bold proclamation that The United Nations Fight for Freedom. Artist Steve Broder provided the haunting image of the Statue of Liberty holding aloft the torch of liberty.