From Wartime Reserve to Pop Culture: What Is the History of ‘Keep Calm and Carry On?’

The ubiquitous catchphrase ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ has become the quintessential symbol of the United Kingdom, representing stoical resolve and restraint in the face of hardship and struggle. Today the phrase appears everywhere from posters and mugs to tea towels. Often printed in a vintage font and featuring the British crown, the phrase conjures up the plucky, patriotic determination expected of Brits during World War II under the leadership of Winston Churchill, a sentiment that can also be applied to a myriad of new situations today. But where did the phrase actually come from, and how did it become so widespread?

During the buildup to World War II, the British Government established the Ministry of Information (MOI) to produce a series of morale boosting posters for display across Britain. Designed with bold, big text, and catchy slogans, alongside the British crown, the aim was to capture as many Britons as possible. Of the slogans the team came up with were ‘Freedom Is in Peril – Defend it With All Your Might”, along with “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory.” The third, perhaps unsurprisingly, read “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

However, the third ‘Keep Calm” poster was never officially sanctioned for display. Instead, although it was printed, it was kept in reserve, while the other two were more widely circulated throughout notice boards, public transport and hoardings across the UK. 

A Wartime Reserve

The MOI had originally envisioned the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On” as a fitting message which would only be issued if Britain faced a ground invasion by Germany, which would have resulted in widespread panic. As this never happened, the poster never made its way out into the public eye. Meanwhile the other two posters were deemed a more suitable message of courage and fortitude. In 1945, the majority of the reserve ‘Keep Calm’ posters were destroyed after the war in 1945. Author Bex Lewis, who Wrote Keep Calm and Carry on: The Truth Behind the Poster (2017) noted, “There was a fear that morale would fall apart, but it turned out that people didn’t need to be told to keep their chins up – they just wanted to be told what to do.”

Some 60 years later, during the early aughts, one of the few remaining Keep Calm and Carry On posters was rediscovered by a bookseller from Barter Books hidden in amongst a pile of books in an auction. The bookseller hung the poster over the cash register of their store in Northumberland, where customers began asking where they could buy their own copy. Shop owners Stuart and Mary Manley began printing their own copies due to popular demand, but they had no idea just how widespread the catchphrase would become. 

Recent Times

It wasn’t until 2008 that the Keep Calm and Carry On slogan became mass-produced, and by the following year it was firmly in place across British society. The shop at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London played a significant role in bringing the caption out into the public eye. For some, it encapsulated the instability of the banking crash, when an age of austerity was suddenly being ushered in by politicians (who weren’t following the same rules themselves), followed by the looming threat of terrorism. The term ‘austerity nostalgia’ as been applied to the rising interest in such wartime memorabilia as the ‘Keep Calm’ slogan, symbolizing a popular desire to resurrect some idealized version of modernist times, when it seemed as though British people had the grit and reserve to weather any storm.

Nowadays, you can still expect to find the phrase printed on merchandise in museums stores, gift shops and tourist attractions across the UK, where it has become as familiar and overused as the Coca-Cola emblem, or perhaps the similar wartime vintage poster featuring ‘Rosie the Riveter’. Meanwhile, several copies of the original belong to the National Archives and The Imperial War Museum in London. In fact, the phrase is now so well-known and cliched across the UK and beyond that it has been parodied many times over, from ‘Keep Calm and Save the NHS’, to the more playful ‘Freak Out and Run.’