Must Children Die and Mothers Plead in Vain?

Must Children Die and Mothers Plead in Vain?

Liberty bonds

The poster features a central figure of a mother holding onto her babies and reaching out into the empty distance. The description in full reads "Must Children Die and Mothers Plead in Vain? Buy More Liberty Bonds." The colors are a pale yellow except for the mother's hair and some of her clothing. The message it seems to evoke would be women and children are suffering because you (the poster's audience) are not buying enough liberty bonds. The unsubtle appeal to the masculine duty to protect women and children doubles with the appeal to human empathy to want to help the defenseless, employing a devastating guilt trip of as a sales pitch. The woman faces away, and the background she faces is the only negative space in the artwork, as opposed to the busy foreground. It looks as if the poster tries to get male observers to want nothing more than to tap her on the shoulder and tell her that he will buy liberty bonds for her if no one else can.

Henry Patrick Raleigh, 1880-1946

McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tulsa 2933 E. 6th St. Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-3123

Sackett and Wilhelms Lithographing & Printing Corporation, New York

1918

Poster

English

1992.004.5.87

United States