The Freedom from Want – A Thanksgiving Image

I love this Norman Rockwell image. Many consider it to be the quintessential Thanksgiving image.

Did you know it was inspired by a State of the Union address given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt?

In January, 1941, President Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address which is often referred to as the Four Freedoms speech. Roosevelt focused on the four freedoms everyone in the world should enjoy – freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear, and the freedom from want.

The speech was delivered eleven months before the United States would declare war on Japan, but even though we weren’t at war, Roosevelt wanted to emphasize the national security of the county and remind citizens that folks all around the globe were under threat regarding the “four freedoms”. This speech was historic because President Roosevelt made a break with the tradition (at that time) for the United States to adhere to non-interventionism.

The “Four Freedoms” were eventually seen as the Allied objectives for World War II and were incorporated into the Atlantic Charter and eventually became part of the charter for the United Nations.

The speech inspired Norman Rockwell to depict each of the “four freedoms” in a series of four paintings. The process would take him six months to complete. At one point he even doubted his depiction of “the freedom from want” fearing the Thanksgiving image would be interpreted as overabundance. After consulting several friends he opted to keep the painting as we see it today.

The four paintings were published in the Saturday Evening Post on February 20^th, February 27^th, March 6^th, and March 13^th, 1943.

The U.S. Treasury eventually requested to take the original paintings on a tour across the country to raise money – over $130 million dollars in war bond sales was raised.

By the end of the 20^th century, 25 million people had bought Rockwell’s Four Freedoms prints.

Iconic, indeed!