The images that Americans saw during World War II not only shaped their attitudes toward the war but also influenced culture and national self-representations in the postwar period and later decades. In keeping with Office of War Information regulations, wartime posters, films, cartoons, and news photographs presented images of a culturally diverse but unified nation collectively working to win the war. Frank Capra's Why We Fight films, comic books, and government-issued posters all framed the war in terms of good versus evil, pitting the Allies and democracy against the Axis nations and Fascism. This polarized way of viewing the war, combined with the clear-cut victory of the Allied nations, contributed to perceptions of World War II as the "good war" and helped position the war as the nation's most commonly agreed upon moral reference point.

Although pictures of U.S...