Posters display WWI efforts
State Museum exhibit marks 100th anniversary of U.S. entry into war
HARRISBURG — Step into a dimly lighted gallery in The State Museum of Pennsylvania and you almost can step back 100 years in time.
Posters surround you urging you to get behind the war effort: volunteer, buy Liberty bonds, conserve food. Your country is counting on you.
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the United States entering World War I in 1917, and The State Museum is marking the occasion with the exhibit “Pennsylvania At War: World War I Posters from the Pennsylvania State Archives.”
The 23 posters in the exhibit represent three major themes: Those encouraging military recruitment, those recommending the conservation of food and other material essential to the war effort and those urging people to buy “Liberty” bonds, which the government used to finance the war effort, said Richard Saylor, an archivist at The Pennsylvania State Archives and curator of the exhibit.
The posters carried vivid
images from a different time, depicting the government’s aim to unite the country behind the war.
Among the recruiting posters is perhaps the most well-known such image, “I Want You for U.S. Army” featuring a stern Uncle Sam pointing directly at the viewer.
Another recruiting poster depicted a Navy sailor tapping the shoulder of a newspaper-reading civilian with the words: “The Navy Needs You! Don’t Read American History — Make It!”
Other posters — primarily aimed at women — encouraged them to cook with corn, and use less wheat, fat, meat and sugar in the kitchen.
The idea was “people back on the home front could voluntarily make this personal sacrifice to aid the war effort, and that the soldiers on the battlefront deserve the best,” Mr. Saylor said.
The posters, which were illustrated by famous artists of the day, were the work of President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information, which oversaw all advertising — some might say propaganda — to mobilize Americans.
The posters often didn’t use the word “war” and often didn’t actually depict combat — though sometimes they did. One poster showed New York City in flames with warplanes flying overhead and a decapitated Statue of Liberty — warning about the dark future that might come without Americans buying Liberty Bonds.
Another poster appealed to the millions of Americans who were recently arrived immigrants and their children. Depicting a ship of immigrants arriving in New York, it read: “You came here seeking Freedom. You must now help to preserve it.” It was printed in 10 languages. Millions of these posters were printed, and the images would have been seen by everyday Americans looking out from the sides of buildings, shop windows or Post Offices to build public support for the war, which many Americans had resisted entering during the early years it raged in Europe.
There are close to 500 World War I posters housed within the permanent collections of the Pennsylvania State Archives. The ones for the exhibit were selected by Mr. Saylor based on their themes, artistic merits and Pennsylvania ties.
The Archives and the State Library of Pennsylvania have digitized some of the posters, which can be viewed online at https:// phmc.info/wwi-posters.
“Pennsylvania At War: World War I Posters from the Pennsylvania State Archives” will run through Nov. 12.
More than 297,000 Pennsylvanians served in the war, said Tyler Gum, site administrator of the Pennsylvania Military Museum.