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Charles Marvin Fairchild (SFS '48) Memorial
Gallery
November 1999 – February 2000
Introduction
The enormous output of posters in the United States during and just
after the First World War belies this country's late entry into that conflict.
Spurred by the example of the various European combatants, the creation
and production of appropriate "pictorial publicity" quickly achieved a
very high level of artistic involvement and industrial application. Thousands
of designs were created, and most of them were printed in very large numbers.
As a result, very few of these posters are scarce even today, and only
a small handful might qualify as "rare."
A large number of artists were involved in the creation of posters during
the war. Some of them came to the work with their reputations already secured
through their commercial work in books, magazines, and advertising: of
these, for example, Howard Chandler Christy and James Montgomery Flagg
are represented in this exhibit, Harrison Fisher and Edward Penfield are
not. Some of the artists in the exhibit are now known to us largely because
they did these-and other-posters. "Ruttan" and the euphonious "H. Blyleven
Esselen" defeated attempts to track them down in the reference resources
at hand; John E. Sheridan, who might well be a mystery elsewhere, is known
here because he attended Georgetown in the closing years of the 19th century
and his first poster work was probably the series he did advertising Georgetown
baseball games against Princeton, Yale, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. As
in Britain, some posters took advantage of work first published as cartoons
in the daily papers; the examples shown here by W. A. Rogers and Oscar
Cesare are typical. Many of the artists, whether obscure or famous, contributed
their work gratis to the war effort.
The posters helped not only with the obvious aim of recruiting members
for the armed forces, but with the parallel home-front efforts embodied
in various conservation efforts, in the multiple aims of the United War
Work Campaign, in the work of the Red Cross, and perhaps most notably in
the rapid subscription of the Liberty and Victory loans. Each of the four
Liberty loan campaigns (two in 1917, two in 1918) and the Victory loan
campaign of early 1919 brought an outpouring of poster art on both the
local and national levels. Of the six posters in the exhibit not listed
in Theofiles' book, three relate one way or another to recruiting, and
the other three are loan appeals.
We note also that the same printing firms which thrived on the production
of the posters contributed in some cases to their creation. W. F. Powers
in New York made and donated the color plates for the Cesare poster; the
Robert Gary Company in Brooklyn contributed the entire Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge
effort. And the striking poster by Joseph Grosse, unknown to Theofiles,
was contributed by the "Cloak, Suit and Skirt Industry Committee." In a
context where the various Liberty and Victory loan drives achieved something
like 30 billion dollars in returns these efforts may seem tiny, but cumulatively
they and others like them did much for the proliferation of the poster
as an important means of war effort communication.
The current exhibit, timed to "open" on the 81st anniversary
of Armistice Day, November 11, is the second in what we hope will be a
series of exhibits of posters drawn from the collection of Roger N. Mohovich,
acquired in 1997 as a gift from his heirs, David van Buskirk and Warren
Wilson. See also: TAKE
UP THE SWORD OF JUSTICE: British Posters of World War I.
Entries for each poster are arranged in the following format: artist
(where known); title; size (in inches, height before width); place of printing,
publisher, and date; notes (those in quotation marks taken directly from
the posters themselves); and references. References are to the following
works: George Theofiles, American Posters of World War I (Dafran,
©1973); Labert St. Clair, The Story of the Liberty Loans (James
William Bryan Press, 1919); Joseph Darracott, The First World War in
Posters (Dover, ©1974); and Maurice Rickards, Posters of the
First World War (Walker, ©1968).
George M. Barringer
Georgetown University Library
Posters
Click the thumbnails
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James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960)
First Call
11 x 21, printed on board
[New York] Leslie-Judge Co., ©1917
Not in Theofiles
Ruttan
A Wonderful Opportunity for YOU
28 x 20 1/4
[n.p., 1919?]
Probably a post-war appeal for recruits.
Not in Theofiles
William Allen Rogers (1854-1931)
ONLY THE NAVY CAN STOP THIS
25 1/4 x 19 ½
New York: U. S. Navy Publishing Bureau [1917]
Reproduction of a cartoon from The New York Herald.
Theofiles 47; Rickards 180
H. Blyleven Esselen
YOU DRIVE A CAR HERE - WHY NOT A TRANSPORT IN FRANCE?
27 ½ x 19 1/4
[n.p., 1918?]
Not in Theofiles
James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960)
HOLD ON TO UNCLE SAM'S INSURANCE
30 x 20
Boston: Forbes [1919?]
Theofiles 324
Paul C. Stahr (1883-19??)
Be Patriotic
28 3/4 x 21
New York: W. F. Powers [1918?]
Theofiles 97
John E. Sheridan
Food is Ammunition
28 3/4 x 20 1/4
[n.p., 1918?]
Theofiles 76; St. Clair, p. 155
Burton Rice
SEE HIM THROUGH
25 3/4 x 19 3/4
[n.p.] 1918
Theofiles 294, attributed to "Carlson Rice"
Clarence Frederick Underwood (1871-1929)
Back our girls over there
28 x 21 1/4
[n.p., 1918?]
Theofiles 213; St. Clair, p. 177
Arthur William Brown (1881-19??)
FOR YOUR BOY
29 3/4 x 20
Philadelphia: Ketterlinus [1918?]
Produced by the Committee on Public Information,
Division of Pictorial Publicity.
Theofiles 197
J. Allen St. John
The Hun ~ his Mark
30 1/4 x 19 3/4
Chicago: Manz Engraving Co. [1917]
Theofiles 137; St. Clair, p. 84; Darracott 40
[Anonymous]
Remember Your First Thrill of AMERICAN LIBERTY
30 x 20
New York: Sackett & Wilhelms [1917]
Theofiles 135; St. Clair, p. 73
R. H. Porteous
WOMEN! HELP AMERICA'S SONS WIN THE WAR
30 x 20
Chicago: Edwards & Deutsch [1917]
Theofiles 131, attributed to "P. S. Porteus;" St. Clair, p. 73
[Anonymous]
"THAT GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE..."
30 x 20
[n.p., 1918]
Theofiles 152; St. Clair, p. 36
Henry Raleigh (1880-19??)
HALT the Hun!
28 3/4 x 19 3/4
Chicago: Edwards & Deutsch [1918]
Theofiles 140; St. Clair, p. 37
Joseph L. Grosse
HELP CRUSH the MENACE of the SEAS
27 3/4 x 18 1/4
New York: O'Connor-Fyffe Adv. [1918?]
"Poster Contributed by Cloak, Suit and Skirt Industry Committee"
Not in Theofiles
Joseph Pennell (1860-1926)
PROVIDE THE SINEWS OF WAR
20 x 21, printed on board
New York: Heywood, Strasser & Voigt, ©1918
Theofiles 162
Henry Raleigh (1880-19??)
HUN OR HOME?
29 3/4 x 19 3/4
Chicago: Edwards & Deutsch [1918]
Theofiles 166; St. Clair, p. 137
Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge (1889-19??)
Pvt. TREPTOW'S PLEDGE
30 x 19 3/4
Brooklyn: Robert Gair Company, 1918.
Poster donated by the printing company.
Not in Theofiles
Oscar E. Cesare
REMEMBER THE BOND
24 3/4 x 18 ½
[New York] The Nation Press [1918?]
"Color Plates made and donated by Powers Engraving Co., N. Y."
Reproduction of a cartoon from The New York Evening Post.
Not in Theofiles
Ray Greenleaf (18??-1950)
Answer the Red Cross Christmas Roll Call
30 x 20
Buffalo: Niagara Litho. Co., ©1918
Produced by the Committee on Public Information,
Division of Pictorial Publicity.
Theofiles 232
William B. King (1880-1927)
Hold up your end!
27 ½ x 20 1/4
[New York? 1918?]
Theofiles 221; St. Clair, p. 142
Jessie Wilcox Smith (1863-1925)
Have YOU a Red Cross Service Flag?
28 x 22 1/4
Chicago: Edwards & Deutsch [1918?]
Theofiles 237
P. G. Morgan
Keep this Hand of Mercy at its work
27 ½ x 20 ½
[New York? 1918?]
Theofiles 228, attributed to "C. Emerson, Jr."
Howard Chandler Christy (1872-1952)
THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA
30 x 20
Boston: Forbes [1918?]
Theofiles 242; Darracott 6
All text and images © Georgetown University. All rights reserved.
For reproduction information contact artcollection@georgetown.edu
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