The piece that I chose is a wartime poster titled “Woman Your Country Needs You!”. The poster calls upon women to do their part in the efforts of World War I and contribute their service. This is made clear because the image depicts, what appears to be, Lady Liberty standing behind an American woman and equipping her with the weapon of service, which is inscribed on the weapon in her hand. This image is meant to inspire an attitude of service into women in hopes of acquiring their labor to help grow the war effort. Lady Liberty is also holding a shield, which has the words “State & National Councils of Defense” written on it. The State and National Councils of Defense were created to help manage all of the resources that were related to the war efforts. This signifies that the service that women offer to the war effort goes a long way in terms of protecting the American people from any external threats, such as the Germans. Deanna Beard discussed the importance of women’s roles in her analysis “A Doughgirl with the Doughboys: Elsie Janis, ‘The Regular Girl,’ and the Performance of Gender in World War I Entertainment”, where she states, “Janis avoided the limitations women face when placed on pedestals and thereby offered another model for women in the emerging modern American society.”[1] This comes from an analysis of Elsie Janis’ life and role in World War I as an entertainer.
The use of Lady Liberty in this poster instills a sense of patriotism in the mind of the audience because the importance of the Statue of Liberty to the American People. Additionally, Lady Liberty represents freedom for the American people, which is important for the purposes of this poster because it gives the viewer a sense of how pressing the war is; the war is now about fighting for our freedom and liberties. Another thing worth noting about the poster is the presence of the troops in the background. The troops in this picture are meant to look plentiful and strong. This is because it inspires a sense of pride in our country and that there are plenty of people signing up to be a part of the war efforts. The hopes for this are that people will see this and want to be one of the good ones who signs up to help the country. The interesting thing about that is that, at the time that this poster was created, women were denied of many liberties and rights, as they were not even able to vote until three years later.
An interesting thing to note with this poster is that the term service is not explicitly defined anywhere. Many war effort posters will say what they need from the people in order to be of help to the country. For example, we often see posters that ask for people to enroll in the Army or others that ask for people to purchase war bonds in order to give more money to the war. However, this poster does not specifically say what they want women to do in order to help serve for the war effort. From a historical standpoint, we can conclude that they were more than likely asking women to help by serving as nurses in order the help the wounded and dying soldiers. Carol Acton talked about this in “Dangerous Daughters: American Nurses and Gender Identity in World War One and Vietnam”, when she states, “These narratives show women who, for the most part, accepted the gendered identities that were prescribed for them by their place in time and space, whether pre-World War One or 1950’s and 60’s North America.”[2] However, it is also possible that women were being asked to serve at home by taking over the jobs that many men had to leave in order to serve on the battlefield. This is addressed in Sandi Cooper’s “Gender and the First World War: Gender and the Great War”, when she says, “Military necessity dragged women into labor normally well out of their experience in fields and in handcraft production.”[3] I feel that the point of the poster is to be ambiguous in what it means by service in order to encompass any possible definitions of the word.
[1] Beard, Deanna Toten. “A Doughgirl with the Doughboys: Elsie Janis, ‘The Regular Girl,’ and the Performance of Gender in World War I Entertainment”. Vol. 33, no. 1, 2014, pp. 67. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/ths.2014.0012.
[2] Acton, Carol. “Dangerous Daughters: American Nurses and Gender Identity in World War One and Vietnam.” War, Literature, and the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities, vol. 13, no. 1–2, 2001, pp. 89. EBSCOhost.
[3] Cooper, Sandi E. “Gender and the First World War: Gender and the Great War.” Peace & Change, no. 4, 2019, p. 578. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/pech.12375.