Anonymous
Untitled (Our Wounded need care), ca. 1917-1920
lithograph mounted on board
26 3/4 x 19 7/8 in. (sheet); 27 1/4 x 20 3/8 in. (board)
95.3.30

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All the Help They Could Get 
by Meg Doepke '01

World War I was a time in which nations needed to join their people together in order to survive.  Men went to fight on the battlegrounds, which left many jobs that were once male-dominated open to women for the first time.  Many women voluntarily became involved in the war effort, but others needed to be persuaded.  This propaganda poster was an attempt to draw women, more specifically educated nurses, into the war. 

The poster is very simple, for it has no drawings or images on it, but it gets its message across.  There are no distractions, and the strong red, white, and blue border adds to the patriotism of the poster.  The block letters and underlining are very effective, and in a sense, women are almost made to feel obligated to join the war effort.  The poster undoubtedly made women feel guilty that men were risking their lives on the battlefields, and that the least they could do was offer their nursing skills.  In that sense, this poster probably convinced many women of all classes and races to offer their support and may have encouraged women who were not trained as nurses to offer other means of support.  In large part by making women feel guilty, organizations were able to manipulate the amount of female help they received during such a time of need. 
 

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Text by Tomoko Shimizu '01

Although this poster does not have a picture, there is a strong message.   This poster is meant to attract women to become nurses to help the wounded soldiers.  Before the war, nursing was thought of as a "risky profession" and because nurses were paid to deal with the male body, the profession was considered sexual by many.  The Red Cross needed to break this stereotype; they needed women to be nurses.  To break this negative image and to make women want to become nurses, they made this poster and others like it. 

By not putting any images on the poster, the Red Cross appealed to women as professionals and gave the message that the Red Cross would treat women professionally.  The poster gave the message to women "not to worry about the sexual stigma about the nurse."   The word "serve" has many meanings when it was used for women; however, in this poster, the word indicated the meaning of "serving" the country as a citizen of the nation.  As a result, this poster made a good impact on middle class young women as well as upper class young women to participate the war as nurses.  It gave them the idea that the occupation of the nurse was no longer what it meant before. 
 

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