Spectral Soldiers: Domestic Propaganda, Visual Culture, and Images of Death on the World War II Home Front

This essay argues against the prevailing historical conception that George Strock’s graphic photograph of three lifeless Marines—published by Life magazine on September 20, 1943—was the defınitive point when domestic U.S. propaganda began to portray increasingly grisly images of dead American soldiers. After considering how the visual culture of the home front made the photo’s publication a dubious prospect for the government, I examine a series of predecessor images that arguably helped construct a rhetorical space in which such graphic depictions could gradually gain public acceptance and that, ultimately, ushered in a transformation of the home front’s visual culture.