United States pro-free business and anti-dictatorship propaganda poster

Anti-dictatorship, pro-free business poster featuring a man chained to a post, designed by Chester Raymond Miller in 1944, for the Think American Institute as part of the Think American Poster Series. The Think American Institute was formed by a group of industrialists from Rochester, New York, to combat subversive propaganda they felt was infiltrating American business. The group aimed to preserve the social order, boost American morale, extend the institutions of American freedom, and aid the war effort after the U.S. entry into World War II. The group was led by William G. Bromley, president of Kelly-Read & Company, and the lead designer Miller, who also served as the Art Director for Kelly-Read & Company. The Think American Series ran from 1939 to the early 1960s, and produced weekly posters with illustrated messages that were placed in financial, business, and educational organizations across America. The series produced over 300 poster designs during the war and more than 1,000 overall, with the majority conceived by Miller. A main theme of the series was the association of individual freedom with freedom of industry. During the war, this subtext was used to link Axis dictatorships to the subjugation of their citizens through the nationalization of business. The success of American private industry not only provided the tools to fight the war, but it also was an antithesis to Axis ideology. The Think American Institute repackaged and reused these themes after the war, in response to the Cold War and the threat of communism.