The true story of keep calm and carry on – newspaper Zocalo

Original poster that appeared in 2000 in a box of books purchased by Stuart Manley. Photo: Special.

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09/12/2015 – 7:35 PM

.- Mexico City is one of the most famous posters in history and its success has spread in the last decade, with variations tourist nauseam that combine the “Keep Calm” with any sentence. The appeal of its origin is printed in order to maintain the morale and give a sample of phlegm stoic in the London hit by the bombs of the Nazi Army.

But what not everyone knows is that this poster It was never used during the years of Hitler’s punishment to English cities. Actually he rose to fame in 2000 after spending almost 60 years hidden. The real story of the “keep calm and carry on” (Keep crying and go) we have been able to meet thanks to the research of Dr. Rebecca Lewis.
Three different original posters

When the British they assumed that war was inevitable, the leaders of the time tried to do the logical provision of defensive instruments. One of the less tangible and that it was of great importance for all was the morale among the population, given that the enemy was strong and large numbers of casualties are feared. After the Spanish Civil War had become clear that the bombing of cities was intended precisely to undermine civilian morale.

So they tried to create several posters. The need to devote to print five million posters of many means to stimulate public morals

Immediately a creative team was launched discussed.. The first posters, which if used in the first months of war were: “Freedom is in Peril: Defend It With All Your Might” (Freedom is in danger defend it with all your effort), and “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness , Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory “(Your courage, joy and determination will give us victory). In the same batch it is also printed another, which was never used but has just left with all the fame, “keep calm and carry on.”

reserved in anticipation of hardening of the bombing, which reveals that the authorities were not wrong, though few could expect the fire pumps Hitler unleash from September 7, 1940: the “Blitz,” which threw for 8 months industrial tons of bombs that hit especially London.

No posters were the only domestic propaganda, trying to unite the war effort. Of any fact specifically devoted to supporting the troops, “Our Fighting Men Depend on You” (Our fighters are dependent on you), who was struck in factories and ports

At the beginning of the war. just bombs fell, due to the strength of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain. In the warehouses there were two and a half million copies of “Keep Calm …”, ready for pasting as the bombing began. But by September 1940 the British Ministry of Information and knew that people would bother posters, because the paternalistic were so ceased to be used. So that you never knew the effected spending most of the posters again be finished pulp. Only a few copies would be spared.
A specimen appears in 2000

The rest is already known, the owner of the bookshop Barter Books, Stuart Manley, bought a box at an auction in which expected find worthy of returning to market books. And at the bottom of the box he found a copy of that poster. He framed and hung on the wall of the store, behind his office desk. And there was born the icon. Every time someone saw it asked another copy. So much so that in the end it printed a short run, they removed out of hand, as they say. The impression that the cartel brought back to life came from the hand of the cartoonist Chris Donald, who redesigned and partly balanced ancient typography. Thanks to his advice, Manley asked permission to market the poster to the Government, since the original belonged to the Crown. The response was positive and given the green light to market products with the sentence as quickly dragged to success.

The trouble is that Manley did not record the commercial exploitation of the idea. And that began to turn the snowball that has made the unprecedented message against damage morale bombing an icon of the century. Certainly there has been no stranger to legal battles for rights, not in Britain, but in Europe, where a company other registered products Keep Calm … was recorded

The new version was not recorded, and that explains the infinite variety of tourist posters that can be found today on the streets of London where the Keep Calm applies to almost all activities of human life. The best is that, even if not used, the behavior under the bombs of the “Blitz” was precisely commending that message, a calm that forged the character of the people who won the war.

It should encourage who wants to deepen to read the original thesis of Dr. Lewis, (entitled ‘The Planning, Design and Reception of British Home Front Propaganda Posters of the Second World War “and available here), because it makes a complete count of war propaganda at that time and the reception that took the action of the high command in the population.