Patriotic Persuasion: American Posters of the First World War

The variety of approaches which government agencies used to encourage wide-spread participation in the war effort was impressive, from the allure of artist Howard Chandler Christie’s young woman who, in a1917 poster, seductively proclaimed, “I WANT YOU FOR THE NAVY,” to the inquisitional tone of a war loan poster of the next year: “Are you 100% American? Prove it! Buy U.S. Government Bonds.” In the era of radio and film’s infancy, posters remained an essential medium for the public’s dreamlife, capable of nightmarish manipulation: in one of the iconic wartime posters from the Watling donation, artist Joseph Pennell in 1918 powerfully imagined a partially destroyed Statute of Liberty and New York City aflame in the background, with the plea, “That Liberty Shall Not Perish from the Earth/Buy Liberty Bonds/Fourth Liberty Loan.”

Featuring these works, as well as numerous other posters that combine image and text in ingenious, surprising, and sometimes disturbing combination, “Patriotic Persuasion” marks the centennial of American participation in the First World War. 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.