GROWING PROPAGANDA
“All you gentlemen have to do is to induce the American people to change their ways of living — that's all.”
— John S. Pardee, chief of the Publications Section of the Food Administration, addressing State Educational Directors, with irony, 1917
Cory Bernat has curated an extensive online image gallery of war-era government posters related to food, food production, farming, backyard gardening, and rationing. The images come from the US National Agricultural Library.
Victory gardens were established by nearly 20 million Americans and produced up to 40 percent of all the vegetable produce consumed nationally. Incredible isn’t it?
"Through posters, the United States government attempted to capture the public's attention during World Wars I and II as it sought public support and a cooperative homefront willing to put the needs of the nation before their own.
...Wartime posters in this collection conveyed messages about the vital need for food conservation, rationed goods, meatless and wheatless days, home gardening and canning.
...This exhibit of posters from the Special Collections of the National Agricultural Library asks,
* What did these urgent war messages about food look like?
* What type of homefront behaviors required modification?
* What do the messages tell us about the needs of a government in a time of war and its relationship to homefront populations and private businesses?
In addition, by displaying posters from two different wars, this exhibit encourages us to compare and contrast of wartime messages, poster styles and historical contexts.
* What changed in the posters from two time periods?
* In what ways did they stay the same?
Many illustrations, messages and sentiments that we associate with World War I and World War II are famous because of posters. By revisiting some of the images and messages disseminated at home during both wars, visitors to this exhibit can ask, Are these the wartime images and messages we “remember?”
Leave a Response
