Historical Sources

• Propaganda is characterized by these traits — it simplifies complex issues, is biased, geared to achieving a particular end, plays on emotions, and defines a cause. It can be true, partially true, or blatantly false. The strategies employed by Nazi propagandists were drawn from a broader history of public information campaigns employed in the service of a variety of causes, in peacetime and wartime.

• These online exhibits and archives offer a wealth of historical propaganda materials from around the world, ranging from an analysis of techniques used to influence public opinion during World War I to an assembly of American election television commercials dating from the early 1950s until 2008. The study of these materials helps to deepen our understanding of the techniques harnessed to sway public opinion in different contexts.

Online Archives of Historical Propaganda

• Covering the War: American Newspaper Pictorials from World War I Library of Congress
  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/rotogravures/rotoprop.html
• The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2008

  This site, an exhibit from the American Museum of the Moving Image, allows you to explore U.S. presidential campaign TV advertising since 1952. Includes many video ads from presidential campaigns since 1952.

  http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/
• Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page

  The extensive German Propaganda Archive includes both propaganda itself and material produced for the guidance of propagandists.

  http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa
• Political Propaganda

  The Wolfsonian contains the largest collection in the United States of twentieth-century German, Italian, and United States political propaganda, including prints, posters, drawings, books and serial holdings, and objects that document the rise and demise of these nations' fascist movements.

  http://www.wolfsonian.org/collections/c7/index.html
• World War II Poster Collection

  The Northwestern University Library presents a collection of over 300 World War II posters.

  http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/wwii-posters/
• Propaganda Resources

  Comprehensive resource site written by a Trinity University professor. It builds on the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) work and focuses on World War I propaganda. However, contemporary and more recent examples of propaganda and persuasion are also included.

  http://www.propagandacritic.com/