Office of War Information

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Office of War Information

(OWI), U.S. agency created (1942) during World War II to consolidate government information services. The OWI absorbed the functions of the Office of Facts and Figures, the Office of Government Reports, the division of information of the Office for Emergency Management, and the foreign information service of the Coordinator of Information. Elmer DavisDavis, Elmer,
1890–1958, American newspaperman, radio commentator, and author, b. Aurora, Ind. Davis was a Rhodes scholar (1910–13) at Oxford. For 10 years (1914–24) he was on the staff of the New York Times.
..... Click the link for more information. was named director. Besides coordinating the release of war news for domestic use, the office established an overseas branch, under Robert E. SherwoodSherwood, Robert Emmet,
1896–1955, American dramatist, b. New Rochelle, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1918. After serving in World War I, he wrote for Vanity Fair and Life, serving as editor of the latter from 1924 to 1928.
..... Click the link for more information. , which launched a huge information and propaganda campaign abroad. Congressional opposition to the domestic operations of the OWI resulted in increasingly curtailed funds, and by 1944 the OWI operated mostly in the foreign field, contributing to undermining enemy morale. The agency was abolished in 1945, and its foreign functions were transferred to the Dept. of State.

Bibliography

See W. Carroll, Persuade or Perish (1948).

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As subsequently printed and disseminated by the Office of War Information (OWI), the pamphlet swiftly became the first skirmish in a pitched ideological battle within the new information agency.

The illustrated four freedoms: FDR, Rockwell, and the margins of the rhetorical presidency

For example, when the Office of War Information in 1943 printed up what Hart calls a "fulsome booklet" about "The Life of Franklin Roosevelt" to promote American ideology abroad, the result was a brutal domestic political backlash, as conservatives criticized the president for using taxpayer dollars to print re-election campaign literature.

Imperial ad men: a new history shows American public diplomacy conflicted at the core

There is room for literature too, although not much and mainly from the war years: a prologue discusses Thomas Wolfe and two of the twelve chapters examine texts constructed by the Office of War Information and the Frank Capra/War Department films, Why We Fight; Hitchcock's Lifeboat and Paramount Pictures' The Hitler Gang each receive five pages of focused treatment in other chapters.

Michaela Hoenicke Moore, Know Your Enemy: The American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945

Likewise, it is not clear why the author did not consult the records of the Office of War Information and the War Advertising Council, especially because he claims that the latter "became a significant presence in wartime advertising whose importance cannot be overestimated" (29).

All-Out for Victory! Magazine Advertising and the World War II Home Front

In the spring of 1942 American publishers formed the Council on Books in Wartime, whose chairman invented a catchy slogan, 'Books are weapons in the war of ideas', subsequently taken up by the government's propaganda arm, the Office of War Information (OWI), and given wide currency by President Roosevelt.

Books As Weapons

During World War II, Olson worked in the Office of War Information, then in Roosevelt's 1944 re-election campaign.

Marking Olson's centennial

from the Office of War Information to the Office of Strategic Services

Converting the unknown to the known: misconceptualizing culture

Dutch wants to be part of combat and resents his uncle Roy's use of national connections to have him assigned to the Office of War Information in Hollywood after boot camp.

Dutch Clarke: The War Years

During the war Bess worked for the Office of War Information (OWI), in the library of the Music Department, which furnished recordings for radio broadcasts around the world.

Bess Lomax Hawes, Sing It Pretty: A Memoir

using the neutrality of Sweden and Switzerland to deliver the message) and "was issued as propaganda through the Office of War information." Truman's citation of newspaper editorials does not serve as proof of the "prompt rejection" of the ultimatum by the Japanese rulers, or "that the reaction of the Japanese government was entirely different from what Radio Tokyo had reported" as the government was divided as how to approach the issue.

Racing the Enemy -- Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan

using the neutrality of Sweden and Switzerland to deliver the message) and "was issued as propaganda through the Office of War information."Aa Truman's citation of newspaper editorials does not serve as proof of the "prompt rejection" of the ultimatum by the Japanese rulers, or "that the reaction of the Japanese government was entirely different from what Radio Tokyo had reported" as the government was divided as how to approach the issue.AaRather, the Japanese reception was to reserve comment on the ultimatum, "that the Japanese government suspended judgment on the Potsdam ultimatum."Aa

Book Review: Racing the Enemy

By midyear, four fellows had left to join the war effort: one was drafted, one succumbed to pressure from his editors to return to UPI, and two joined the Office of War Information.

Wartime and the Nieman Foundation: Harvard's archives reveal the story of the first Nieman Fellow to die while working as a war correspondent