Photo: Madeline Kauffman
From Thursday, Nov. 1 to Saturday, Dec. 1, Elizabethtown College will be showcasing propaganda posters from World War I designed to enlist women in the war effort. These posters are from the personal collection of Pamela Tronsor, a union organizer for Communications-Workers America and personal friend of professor of English Dr. John Rohrkemper.
Tronsor’s interest in World War I history snuck up on her when she and Rohrkemper attended the British Imperial War Museum—a detour she described as having been taken to while “kicking and screaming.” However, once there, she was struck by the intimacy of the art and poetry that came out of the war.
This would spark a continued love for World War I memorabilia, leading Tronsor to search antique shops for postcards from the time. Her interest in artworks such as these then informed her interest in both the artistry and narrative of the World War I workers’ advertising posters. She described the continued significance of these posters as related to how they portray “women as icons and workers of the war effort.”
These posters were some of the first instances where women were targeted for work beyond homekeeping; it was “the first time [we were] seeing a different role for women,” according to Tronsor. She also said that these posters granted a sense of significance to the average woman, having “sought to enlarge women’s sense of responsibility during the time of war.”
The posters were organized around the John H. Hess Gallery in the lobby of Zug Memorial Hall in sequential order in occurrence with four reoccurring motifs. These motifs were as follows: mythic images, women overseas, women on the homefront and food conservation.
The mythic imagery of women included a poster that read, “Joan of Arc Saved France: Women of America, Save Your Country,” as well as posters with imagery that portrayed women as angelic or otherwise holy in appearance.
Portraying women in these glorified manners worked to incentivize women to work, but a lot of these images veered on sexual, as well, and were likewise significant as a marketing tool to convince men to invest in war bonds.
Overseas, women were recruited for technical work. These switchboard officers, who went to work in France, were referred to as “The Hello Girls” and have only recently been given posthumous military status for their efforts. Women on the homefront worked in a variety of different fields, from the traditionally known factory workers to taking up other jobs such as court stenography.
Food conservation advertisements tended to focus on the image of the woman as a housewife, encouraging the increased use of different products, such as corn, to save on resources. The food conservation effort also brought about the “Farmerettes,” who were college-educated women that turned to agriculture during the war movement.
As far as the artwork itself, professor of art Milt Friedly inquired about the process used to make these posters. They were merely intended as advertisements and were thus were made on cheap paper so as to conserve resources.
First-year and Etownian staff photographer Madeline Kauffman, who is taking the First-year Seminar on World War II, commented that it was as if “[the posters] were made to be destroyed.”
The printmaking process utilized was lithography, which is particularly significant because the plates used for lithographic prints are less liable to being worn down. This means that the prints come out identitically. It is also generally uncommon for lithographic prints to have the same sort of vibrancy that was seen in these posters, though it is likewise difficult to determine how vibrant the posters were when they were initially printed compared to how they have faded over the years.
Tronsor described these posters as “a rare blend of art and history together.” The posters were produced at a standard 20×30 or 30×40 inches and represented women’s progress in America.
“Although women were encouraged to participate and take jobs…they were also told, once the war was over, that it was their patriotic job to go back home,” Tronsor said.
This was true of female artists that created some of these posters and were denied entry to the Society of Illustrators and ended up creating the Ink and Brush Society in retaliation. These posters remain significant due to, as Tronsor stated, the ability of art to “enlarge and liven our lives.”
At the close of Tronsor’s presentation, Rohrkemper advised that those in attendance to “look at [the posters] closely. The closer you get, they really are spectacular.”
