The Poster Campaign

The Division of Pictorial Publicity created 700 designs for posters on behalf of multiple authorities departments. Some posters spurred enlistments in the military machine (two million volunteered; nearly three meg more than were drafted). Others fanned fear or hatred of a racially stereotyped "Hun." Some promoted the buy of war bonds, which raised $24 billion. Others elicited sympathy for our Allies—especially victims of the state of war.

Posters were printed by the millions and plastered alongside or on top of product advertising that covered nearly every inch of public space. Hither, in 1917, Hollywood star Fatty Arbuckle lends a hand.
Courtesy of National Athenaeum and Records Assistants

Get Over the Top with U.S. Marines
American World War I poster by artist John A. Coughlin for the U.South. Marines. Depicted is a U.S. Marine carrying a Lewis light machine gun into gainsay with beau Marines and an American flag visible in the background.

Halt the Hun!
American World War I poster by artist Henry Patrick Raleigh for the Tertiary Liberty Loan. Depicted is an American soldier pushing a High german soldier away from a woman and kid as fires fire in the groundwork.

Beat Back the Hun with Liberty Bonds
American World War I poster by creative person Frederick Strothmann. Depicted is a German soldier with bloody bayonet and hands looming over a body of water, presumably the Atlantic Sea.

Weapons for Liberty
American Globe War I poster by artist Joseph C. Leyendecker for the Boy Scouts of America 3rd Freedom Loan Entrada. Depicted is a Boy Scout kneeling while handing a sword to Liberty who holds a shield.
Gift of Norman H. Brock

Call up Belgium
American World War I poster by artist Ellsworth Young for the Fourth Freedom Loan. Depicted is an armed German soldier dragging a Belgian woman behind him while fires burn down in the background.

Take a Closer Expect

Notation how advertisers rendered the enemy with a dark complexion and ape-similar features. And note equally well that his victims were white women.

At a time when scientific racism had not yet been debunked, nighttime skin and simian features were idea to exist indicators of uncivilized, threatening people. Posters incorporating this imagery were meant to spur white Americans to activity by playing on their association of not-whites with danger or threats to civilization and white womanhood.

Destroy This Mad Brute
American World War I affiche by creative person Harry R. Hopps for the U.S. Ground forces. Depicted is a crazed gorilla, representing Germany, conveying a bloody society and the limp body of a woman while standing on the American shore.
Souvenir of Mrs. Alfred Marston Tozzer