What the original 1939 "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster looked like .. Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of the second world war, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath of widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities .. it had only limited distribution with no public display, and thus was little known .. the poster was rediscovered in 2000, has been re-issued by a number of private companies, and has been used as the decorative theme for a range of products .. it was believed there were only two known surviving examples of the poster outside government archives until a collection of 20 originals was brought in to the antiques roadshow by the daughter of an ex-royal observer corps member in 2012..