Let's Tear Out These Weeds!
c. 1950
Designer
Designer Unknown
Publisher
Institute for American Democracy, Inc.
DIMENSIONS
21 3/4 x 17 1/2 in. (55.2 x 44.5 cm)
OBJECT NUMBER
PH.2025.1089
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
United States
CREDIT LINE
Poster House Permanent Collection
KEYWORDS
Civil Rights, Flowers, Immigration, Political

This poster was distributed after World War II by the Institute for American Democracy, Inc., a front organization for the Anti-Defamation League. It had been founded in New York City in 1941 to promote American involvement in the war and the fight against fascism. In 1944, it launched the Campaign for Unity Democracy and the Four Freedoms (in reference to the Four Freedoms outlined by President Roosevelt in his 1941 State of the Union address), one that included a booklet and a series of posters on the theme. It also produced posters encouraging Americans to buy war bonds. After the war, the institute continued to produce press materials and posters like this one to promote tolerance within the United States. The message that the weeds of prejudice should be torn from the ground is conveyed both in typically lengthy didactic messages, here presented in two eye-catching blocks of red, and in the illustration of the farmers hands ripping weeds from the earth. The field full of them behind him suggests the extent of the challenge facing him as well as that of the American people in the battle against intolerance and hate.

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