Art for War's Sake: War Posters at the Denison Museum

An Introduction to "Art For War's Sake"

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Despite efforts to remain neutral, the United States was drawn into the two titanic struggles of the 20th century, World Wars I & II. Provoked by Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare campaign and diplomatic meddling in Mexico and by the ties of economic self-interest to Britain and France, the US entered the Great War on April 6, 1918. A shocking surprise attack by the Japanese naval and air forces on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, catapulted the US from isolation into the second world conflict. Four days later, Germany and Italy "invited" the Americans to join the European conflict by their declarations of war. In both 1917 and 1941 Americans immediately confronted the immense tasks of mobilizing for total war. Total war demanded a massive army vastly greater in scale than the nation's small professional forces, systemic mobilization of the nation's economic resources, and people willing to sacrifice their blood and treasure for a vital cause. While the Great War ended in November 1918, shortly after American mobilization efforts had achieved significant results, WWII required sustaining those efforts for almost four years.

In total war, the home front was as essential to victory as was the battle front. Without the continuous and increasing flow of soldiers, weapons, ammunition, equipment, supplies, and food from the home front, the fighting forces could not attain victory. The dedicated skilled worker paralleled the courageous soldier. Mobilization transformed the American home front. Across the land, communities like Granville responded and, in turn, were changed.

1. Young men and women volunteered or were drafted for the armed forces and supporting organizations.
2. Agriculture and industry geared up to produce the food and material essential for soldiers at the front.
3. Women of all classes and ethnic backgrounds responded to the increased demands for labor.
4. The government rationed goods and challenged consumers to save and recycle.
5. Civilians of all ages purchased Liberty Bonds and War Bonds combining economic self-interest and patriotism.
6. Americans affirmed their values and defined the enemy as a threat to their way of life.
7. Civilians waited anxiously for word of loved ones fighting in distant lands.

The posters in this exhibit help tell the story of mobilization, transformation, and sacrifice.

While handbills, broadsheets, and placards had long been a means of communication in the political and commercial worlds, the modern poster, of which these war posters, are a part, emerged in the late 19th century. As modern, urban, literate mass society replaced a traditional, largely rural community, enterprises sought more effective methods to reach new consumers. Technical innovations made possible brightly colored, large-run posters. Beginning in the late 1860s, the Parisian lithographer Jules Chéret pioneered these new techniques and designs that maximized the impact of the poster on increasingly harried passers-by. Eye-catching with a clear, direct message that could be absorbed even from a distance, the modern poster had become fundamental in this new age of advertising. Commercial purposes did not exclude aesthetic innovation. A rich interaction developed between the worlds of the poster and "high" art as, for example, represented by the wok of Toulouse-Lautrec.

With the outbreak of the Great War (WWI), European governments immediately grasped the value of the poster as a cheap, portable, accessible medium for conveying to the public messages essential for the transformation from peace to war and sustaining commitment to the war effort. By the time the U.S. entered the fray, the virtues of the poster were understood. The Committee of Public Information, (CPI), organized within a week after the declaration of war, quickly connected with a group of New York artists eager to contribute their talents to the cause. Within a month the director of the CPI, George Creel, editor of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, met with Charles Dana Gibson, president of the New York Society of Illustrators, and they created the Division of Pictorial Publicity of the CPI. Gibson assumed the leadership of this division and swiftly organized a process with illustrators and artists in the Society for generating poster designs. Its output was impressive--700 poster designs for 58 different government departments in the twenty months of its existence. In total, the United States produced over twenty million copies of approximately 2,500 posters in support of the war effort.

Experience, the able teacher, facilitated the rapid deployment of the poster in the mobilization process for World War II. Despite the emergence of radio, film, and the newsreel, posters remained a valued medium in this effort. However, conflict among government officials, advertising executives, illustrators, and artists about effective poster design and a lack of coordination between the many government agencies producing posters necessitated centralized direction. That came from the Office of War Information (OWI), created in June 1942, and its Graphics Division under the leadership of Francis E. Brennan, former art director of Fortune magazine. While tensions between artists and advertisers over poster design and message did not evaporate, over time the OWI developed six major war-information themes as a guide for other issuing agencies and producers of mass media. We have used these themes, slightly modified and listed in this guide, to structure our exhibit. I trust they will assist you in constructing your own stories about the American experience in total war.

Donald G. Schilling
Professor of History, Denison University
President of the Granville Historical Society

Themes

The following themes, illustrated by particular posters, give structure to the exhibit.

1. The Need to Fight: recruiting for the armed services and those in support services such as the women’s auxiliaries and the Red Cross; images of the fighting man.
2. The Need to Work: mobilizing the economy for the war, securing and motivating laborers industry and agriculture, and urging women to join the workforce.
3. The Need to Sacrifice: urging those on the home front to save resources through rationing, conservation, and recycling, to support the war financially, and to sacrifice by sending their loved ones overseas.
4. The Need for Vigilance: warning the public against revealing critical war information. (Note: this was a prominent theme in WWII, likely because of Pearl Harbor and the heightened concern over enemy spies, but was not evident in WWI.)
5. Why We Fight: asserting the justice of the American cause and the values and interests for which the country fights, the importance of our Allies, and the supposedly evil nature of the enemy.

(To explore the exhibition in more detail, click on a link.)

Examples of War Propaganda in Other Media

Here's a film example of World War II propaganda (26 min)...

...and the second half (17 min):

More period films may be found at the Prelinger Archive.

The National Archives also has an online exhibition of poster art from the Second World War:

Further Reading

Michael Howard, The First World War. New York: Oxford Press, 2007. A giant among British historians of military conflict, Howard distills his vast knowledge of this conflict into 150 beautifully written pages; an excellent place to begin an investigation of WW I.

David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004 (25th Anniversary Edition). Described as "fascinating in its insight, panoramic in its sweep," this work remains the best one volume history of American society during WW I.

John Keegan, The Second World War. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. Keegan manages to capture the global scope and varied dimensions of total war in this boldly written study.

David M. Kennedy, The American People in World War II: Freedom from Fear (Pt. II). New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Kennedy, a Stanford University historian, followed up his study of America in WW I with this magisterial, Pulitzer Prize-winning study of America's Second World War experience.

William L Bird, Jr., & Harry R. Rubenstein, Design for Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. This stunning set of poster images evokes the nation's mood during the years of war, while the authors' narrative explores this complex political, cultural, and artistic issues that shaped their production.

Posters of World Wars I and II (CD-ROM and book). Dover, 2005. Your companion piece for this exhibit, featuring 150 of the most notable American posters from the two world wars.

Anthony Lisska, et al. eds., Granville, Ohio: A Study in Continuity and Change, Volume I, A Purpose, A Plan, A Place. Granville, OH: Denison University Press, 2004. If you wish to understand how Granville responded to the two world wars, please see Chapters 6 & 8, "Granville Encounters the World, 1914-1929," and "Patterns of Patriotism: Granville at War, 1941-1945."

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