Thurs. April 28 - Wed. June 15

Have you ever fallen for military propaganda about how you would just be so happy to sign up and serve? The Army of One campaign? The "Be all you can be" campaign? The "few, the proud" Marines campaign? All those TV adverts that make the action non-combative and skill building and rather like a giant real-life chessboard? I grew up during the Vietnam War era, listening to Country Joe MacDonald sing the "Fish Cheer," and CSN&Y do "Ohio," and the Doors do "Unknown Soldier" and Eric Burdon and the Animals do "War." This helped solidify my thoughts about that war, the only one I really might have been eligible for. (The draft ended the year I could have been called.) So, joining up and maybe taking one for the team was not going to happen in my world. But I've always been fascinating by the selling points of service: Bravery, camaraderie, career ... the opportunity to go to far and distant lands, meet foreign people and kill them. (Wait, that last one was from an ad parody.)
   At any rate, in the pre-TV era there were recruitment posters, lots of them. The International Poster Gallery is mounting an exhibit, "Paper Wars”, an evocative exhibition of original propaganda posters of the First and Second World Wars.  It's up April 28 - June 15. (WWI was called the Great War before WWII 'cause who would have thought we'd have another and they'd need numerals? Those friggin' Germans.) The exhibition, which is free, features some of the most persuasive and galvanizing posters from two of the most significant military conflicts in world history.

  World War I was the first conflict in which the illustrated color lithographic poster was used as a means of propaganda.  Already used in the world of commerce, travel, and entertainment before the war, illustrated posters provided an established and effective medium for propaganda delivery. With the outbreak of World War II, combatants once again pressed the poster into service, this time highlighting the conflict’s polarizing ideological struggle that pitted Fascism and Totalitarianism against Democracy.
    Highlighting the show’s fine selection of recruitment posters is Howard Chandler Christy’s 1918 call for naval recruits (in photo).The poster’s subject, a smiling woman in a low-cut United States Navy uniform, is accompanied by the text “Gee!! I wish I were a man.  I’d join the Navy”.  Supplementary text at the bottom of the poster urged the viewer to “Be a man and do it”, directing them to a local Navy recruiting station.  Posters that appealed to period ideals of masculinity were quite popular and effective recruitment tools, often combining patriotic sentiment with sexually charged imagery for maximum effect. A constant throughout time: Sex sells and anything that questions your manhood makes you jump up and say, "Hey!"
     A counterpoint to Christy’s naval recruitment poster is Adolf Treidler’s 1918 design for the YWCA.  The poster highlights the emergence of the female work force during the First World War, stating “For every fighter, a woman worker.”  Women played an invaluable role in both World Wars, supplementing the sudden absence of their male counterparts in the workplace - say hi to Rosie the Rivetter - to assist in the war effort, most notably in the industrial sector.  The YWCA advocated for women’s rights in the workplace, limiting lengthy shifts, prohibiting night work and facilitating the organization of labor unions.
    Lending his iconic and undeniably American style to the war effort, Normal Rockwell also participated in the United States propaganda machine with his 1943 “Four Freedoms” series.  The series was inspired by a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which he described four principles for universal rights: Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship and Freedom from Fear. The United States Department of the Treasure used Rockwell’s paintings to promote the sale of war bonds, debt securities issued by the government to finance military operations during times of war.  Rockwell himself considered “Freedom of Speech” to be the best of the four, an example of which is featured in the exhibition.
     The show also features Joseph Leyendecker’s war bonds “Weapons for Liberty” campaign sponsored by Boy Scouts of America; Lucian Bernhard’s 1918 German World War I poster depicting an imposing iron fist; and Jack Campbell’s virulent 1942 “Tokio Kid”, a fine period example of the use of racial caricature to demonize the enemy. (And of course we thought that enemy was at home too, hence the Japanese internment camps. Why no German internment camps? Well, German-Americans looked like "us," couldn't tell 'em apart. It's easy to look back in hindsight, I know, but this chapter in American history is truly appalling, reminding us the Civil War was only fought 80 years before WWII.) From enticing recruitment posters to pleas for the civilian purchase of war bonds, these posters were a driving force of patriotism and propaganda in their respective homelands.
   I've got military in my background. My parents, both now deceased, were in WWII, my mother doing clerical work for the Army in London, my father as a lieutenant in the Navy on the LST-343. They were both proud of what they did, though typical of their generation, they barely talked about it. I know my father was on duty when a shell rippped through his cabin, destroying everything and if he hadn't been on duty he'd have been included in that. My Mum said she rather enjoyed her time, despite the danger, much like the movie "Hope and Glory." She was a small-town girl from Maine and this was her first time out of that. The ratio of men-to-women was high and I believe she enjoyed those odds. Despite their records in the service, neither one of them wanted me to have anything to do with Vietnam, the first war where our purposes were muddy and never clarified, and our goal, ultimately turned out to be misdirected. The domino theory - one country goes Commie and they all do! - turned out to be a fallacy and 50,000+ US soldiers died for that idea, to say nothing of many more Vietnamese on both sides.
 War? What is it good for? (Supply your own answer.)
 Open 10 a.m. - 6 p.m, Monday-Saturday and noon-6 on Sundays.

205 Newbury St.  www.InternationalPoster.com.