Original vintage World War Two propaganda poster - Life in Britain To-Day - one of the posters produced for the Ministry of Information featuring an illustration of a busy department store, the text below reads - This is an artist's impression of the interior of a typical large department store in Britain to-day. There are some 300 stores throughout Britain similar to the one illustrated, and in addition there are thousands of smaller establishments and what the British call 'bazaar' stores. All of these the prospective customers can enter, and wander round freely, inspecting the various goods displayed, purchasing or not as they wish. The floor space of these vast emporiums, which often have four, five or six stories as well as a basement display room, covers thousands of square feet. In addition to the sales floors there are accounting rooms, canteens for the staff, rest rooms, and stockrooms for the merchandise waiting to be displayed. Many of the stores have been designed and decorated by prominent architects and artists. On each side of a store are broad staircases running to other display floors similar to that shown, but the larger stores are so vast that electric lifts and moving staircases are installed to convey the many customers from one floor to another. The organisation behind businesses such as this is vast and intricate, and thousands of people are employed - one firm alone employs over 13,000 people and has an annual turnover of more than £1,250,000. Each assistant is specially trained before being allowed to serve, and each counter displays a special group of articles. For instance, there is a glove counter, a jewellery counter, a stationery counter, food, cutlery, and glassware counters, and so on. In one building it is possible to purchase almost everything one could want in the way of men's, women's and children's clothing, furnishings, household and kitchen equipment, ornaments, jewellery and trinkets, stationery of all kinds, tinned and packaged foodstuffs, and provisions. A large percentage of the merchandise on sale in these stores comes from overseas, for stores of this nature have in every country in the world purchasing agents, who buy and send to Britain a wide variety of the world's goods. This importing of merchandise for the stores accounts for a large percentage of Britain's £920,000,000-worth of annual imports and is an important factor in her world trade. From the foregoing will be seen the important part department stores play in the life of Britain's citizens. These large stores take their rightful place in the cities and towns, and help not only to keep up Britain's huge imports and stimulate price and commodity competition, but also to stabilise retail prices on a wide variety of merchandise. G.P.D. 377/38/9/7 Printed in England. Horizontal. Fair condition, folds, tears, creasing, staining, foxing, paper losses on edges.