"Franklin D. Roosevelt" Artist unknown, Date unknown [1941?]

Catalogue ref: INF 3/75

A head-and-shoulders portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America (USA) for most of the Second World War. He died just one month before the Germans surrendered. In 1933, a year in which he had the first of many ‘fireside chats'; he famously declared that ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'. He was elected for a third term as President in 1940, and an unprecedented fourth term in 1944.

Pictures of Roosevelt and Churchill were displayed in factories to encourage workers. Whilst the USA was still officially neutral, Roosevelt allowed aid to Britain, formally drafting the Atlantic Charter at sea with Churchill in 1941. Thereafter Lend-Lease to Britain officially began. Roosevelt was finally drawn into the war when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941.