Books and Manuscripts

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office (OWI Poster No. 50), 1943. Lithographic poster. Creasing from original folds, lightly toned along same. 40 x 28 5/8 in. (102 x 73 cm).

A fine example of this scarce poster, bearing the eight "common principles in the national policies" between the United States and Great Britain during World War II.

The Atlantic Charter was the joint statement issued by the American and British governments on August 14, 1941, outlining their goals for the world after the end of World War II. The conference that drafted the Charter was held in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland on August 9 and 10, 1941 aboard the USS Augusta, and was called in response to the quickly changing geopolitical situation in Europe. By mid-1941 the British had just suffered humiliating defeats in the Balkans to the Nazis, who were simultaneously sweeping across North Africa threatening to close the Suez Canal, and in June had begun their invasion of the Soviet Union. While the United States was materially supporting Great Britain with the Land Lease Act, the threat of invasion loomed large as Europe fell. The nonbinding treaty drafted in August outlined eight common principles for the postwar world, including an agreement that both countries would halt territorial expansion, enact the liberalization of international trade, the establishment of freedom of the seas, as well as setting international labor, economic, and welfare standards. Finally, both countries agreed to support the restoration of self-governments for all countries that suffered occupation, and to allow their people to determine their own form of government. Both Roosevelt and Churchill hoped the Charter would galvanize American support for their intervention in the war--and this poster was likely created to be posted publicly in an effort to raise American support--but the American public stood firmly on the side of nonintervention. It wouldn't be until that December, with Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, that American public sentiment changed, and the United States entered the conflict.

An influential prelude to the formation of the United Nations.