The Story behind Keep Calm and Carry On!

Digital Scan of an original 1939 Keep Calm and Carry On poster
Author: UK Govt.
Source: Wikipedia

Keep Calm And Carry On - Five very simple words but are one of the most recognizable and popular memes of our times!  Be it your mobile phone cover cases, your bags, accessories, t shirts, mugs, fridge magnets and so on and so forth, this popular meme can be seen almost anywhere & everywhere amongst us!

But ever wondered how these five little words encapsulated the collective imagination of the world & became a global cultural icon??

The Story behind Keep Calm and Carry On

With the war against Germany starting to look unavoidable, in the Spring of 1939, the British Government's Ministry of Information commissioned a series of propaganda posters to be distributed throughout the country to offer the public reassurance in the dark days which lay ahead & to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath which was predicted before the beginning of the Second World War (WWII).

The posters were required to be uniform in style and were to feature a 'special and handsome' typeface making them difficult for the enemy to forge. The intent of the poster was to convey a message from the King to his people, to assure them that 'all necessary measures to defend the nation were being taken', and to stress an 'attitude of mind' rather than a specific aim. On the eve of a war which Britain was ill-equipped to fight, it was not possible to know what the nation's future aims and objectives would be.

At the end of August 1939 three designs went into production with an overall print budget of £20,600 for five million posters. The first poster, of which over a million were printed, carried a slogan suggested by a civil servant named Waterfield. Using the crown of George VI as the only graphic device, the stark red and white poster read 'Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory'. A similar poster, of which around 600,000 were issued, carried the slogan 'Freedom is in Peril'. But the third design, of which over 2.5 million posters were printed, simply read 'Keep Calm and Carry On'.

Source: Google Images

The first two designs were distributed in September 1939 and immediately began to appear in shop windows, on railway platforms, and on advertising hoardings up and down the country. But the 'Keep Calm' posters were held in reserve, intended for use only in times of crisis or invasion. Although some may have found their way onto Government office walls, the poster was never officially issued and so remained virtually unseen by the public - unseen, that is, until a copy turned up more than fifty years later in 2000, one of the owners of Barter Books, Stuart Manley, was going through a box of dusty old books bought at auction. At the bottom of the box he saw a piece of paper. He took it out, unfolded it, liked what he saw, and showed it to his wife, Mary. Mary liked it, too. In fact, she liked it enough to have it framed and put up near the shop till.

Since that time, the rediscovered 'KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON' poster, copied and recopied (as well as parodied!) by others, has sold in the millions to become one of the first truly iconic images of the twenty-first century!

Check out the video below for more information on this very interesting and iconic phenomena!

Primary source of information: Lewis, R M, 'Undergraduate Thesis: The planning, design and reception of British home front propaganda posters of the Second World War': Written April 1997. Accessed July 2013. ww2poster.co.uk/phd-research/undergraduate-dissertation-1997/

Written and Posted by: Olga Mittal