On The Job For Victory - Portrait

This World War I poster by artist Jonas Lie, created in 1918 for the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, depicts a confident shipyard worker beckoning viewers to join the critical work of wartime ship construction with the slogan "On The Job For Victory." The Emergency Fleet Corporation faced the monumental challenge of rapidly expanding American merchant marine and naval capacity after U.S. entry into World War I in April 1917, when the German U-boat campaign was sinking Allied vessels faster than they could be replaced. The poster's heroic portrayal of industrial labor—showing the riveter as patriotic warrior wielding his gun like a weapon—exemplifies how total war transformed civilian production into military service equivalent to battlefield combat.

The emphasis on being "on the job" reflects the total war concept where victory required coordinating military operations with industrial mobilization, scientific research, agricultural output, and financial resources. The United States needed to construct hundreds of ships to transport two million troops across submarine-infested Atlantic waters while simultaneously replacing merchant tonnage lost to German attacks and building warships to combat the U-boat threat. The poster addresses critical labor shortages in shipbuilding and other war industries as millions of young men enlisted for military service, creating urgent need to recruit replacement workers and sustain morale among those already employed in essential industries. This visual elevation of shipyard work to patriotic duty demonstrates how World War I pioneered propaganda techniques that would be refined during World War II: transforming industrial labor from wage work into civic obligation, making factory workers feel their contributions directly enabled soldiers' survival, and creating unified narrative where home front and battlefield constituted single integrated war effort requiring total societal mobilization.