Poster, 'there's a MAN'S job to be done'

This poster was one of the first voluntary recruitment posters to be commissioned by the Army Department at the beginning of the Second World War. It was critical for the government to stimulate enthusiasm for voluntary enlistment, partly in the hope of avoiding conscription. The strongly gendered image and message in this poster appealed to masculine ideals of work, honour and commitment. Here war equals work, and a regular soldier does the calling, not the government.

Very few examples of this poster have survived, and very few are held in public institutions. With the introduction of compulsory military service in June 1940, recruitment posters 'were of course abandoned, and except for a few copies retained for historical purposes no special effort was made to preserve them' (Director of Publicity to C. H. Bateson, 24 April 1941, External Affairs, series 1, 84/12/12, part 1, Archives New Zealand).