Contact: Mike Horyczun
Director of Public Relations
(203) 869-6786, ext. 330
For Immediate Release
September 25, 2008
That Liberty Shall Not Perish: World War I Posters
November 1, 2008 – February 1, 2009
Bruce Museum
1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, CT
(J or T) Paul Verreel
Join the Air Service, 1917
Poster
37 x 25 ¼”
Bruce Museum Collection, Gift of Beverly and John Watling
The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, spotlights a recent gift with a patriotic theme that
has been added to the Museum’s permanent collection in the new exhibition That Liberty Shall Not
Perish: World War I Posters, on view from November 1, 2008, through February 1, 2009. The show
features eighteen original posters from the First World War, including those created for the four Liberty
Loan campaigns, the War Savings Stamp program, the Victory Loan program, and the Red Cross. Now
nearly one hundred years old, the posters are a window to a time that is growing increasingly distant from
personal knowledge. They primarily reflect an overriding national tone of innocence, patriotism, and
national pride, far different from more recent conflicts of the twentieth century.
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The posters in That Liberty Shall Not Perish: World War I Posters are a recent gift to the
Bruce Museum’s permanent collection by Beverly and John Watling, who also are providing support for
the exhibition. John’s stepfather Charles B. Warren, Jr., along with his older brother, Wetmore Warren,
collected these posters while they were living in Washington, DC, where their father, Charles B. Warren,
Sr., was stationed during World War I, serving on the staff of the Judge Advocate General.
The American posters can all be dated very specifically to the twenty months that the United
States was active in World War I, which was also called the Great War and the War to End All Wars,
between the declaration of war by President Woodrow Wilson on April 2, 1917, and the German
surrender on November 11, 1918.
Many notable American artists were recruited to produce posters, including one of the bestknown and most admired American illustrators, Howard Chandler Christy, who produced the famous
example featuring a uniformed American beauty with the title, “Gee! I Wish I Were a Man! I’d Join the
Navy!” Another Christy poster in the exhibition features a beautiful, flag-waving brunette, exhorting the
viewer to “Fight or Buy Bonds.” Many posters made use of emotionally-charged patriotic symbols such as
the American flag, the Statue of Liberty and Uncle Sam, or included tear-jerking captions like “Must
Children Die and Mothers Plead in Vain? Buy more Liberty Bonds” illustrated by Henry Patrick Raleigh. A
startling example is by the well known printmaker Joseph Pennell. His creation lends its text, “That Liberty
Shall Not Perish from the Earth,” to the title of this exhibition and shows a headless Statue of Liberty,
broken torch at her feet, in shades of red and purple on a yellowish ground, across the harbor of New
York, which is in flames and under attack by enemy bombers.
The government issued more than twenty million copies of approximately 2,500 posters in
support of the war effort. In an era that preceded radio and television broadcasting, they were created as
a way to communicate essential information rapidly and efficiently. They accomplished this by using bold
graphics, strong color and concise wording to urge Americans to contribute to the war effort in specific
ways. Enlist! Fight or Buy Bonds! I Want You for the Navy! One of the most compelling posters has no
words at all, only a lovely Red Cross nurse with outspread arms beseeching the viewer.
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“For many World War I posters to speak to us now,” Walton Rawls has written in World War I and
the American Poster, “requires an effort on our part to be more responsive to the spirit of that period…a
dominant faith in America as God’s ‘chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world.’….It
now seems that, in many ways, citizens of the World War I era are about as distant intellectually from
post-Vietnam Americans as are the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table.”
The Bruce Museum is grateful for this generous gift, which provides a fascinating window into the
American experience in the early twentieth century and further insight into the social and political history
of this era.
The Bruce Museum is located at 1 Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. General admission is
$7 for adults, $6 for seniors and students, and free for children under five and Bruce Museum members.
Free admission to all on Tuesdays. The Museum is located near Interstate-95, Exit 3, and a short walk
from the Greenwich, CT, train station. Museum hours are: Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and closed Mondays and major holidays. Groups of eight or more require
advance reservations. Museum exhibition tours are held Fridays at 12:30 p.m. Free, on-site parking is
available. The Bruce Museum is accessible to individuals with disabilities. For information, call the Bruce
Museum at (203) 869-0376, or visit the Bruce Museum website at www.brucemuseum.org.
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That Liberty Shall Not Perish: World War I Posters
November 1, 2008 - February 1, 2009
Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, CT
These images are available as digital files (JPEG 300 dpi) for exhibition publicity only. To receive images via e-mail contact:
Mike Horyczun, Bruce Museum Director of Public Relations, (203) 869-6786, ext. 330, or mike@brucemuseum.org.
1_WW1 Posters_Navy
R.F. Babcock
Join the Navy, c. 1917
Poster, 42 ½ x 28 ¼”
Bruce Museum Collection,
Gift of Beverly and John Watling
2_WW1 Posters_I Want You
Howard Chandler Christy (American 1873- 1952)
I Want You for the Navy, 1917
Poster, 41 ½ x 27 ¼”
Bruce Museum Collection,
Gift of Beverly and John Watling
4_WW1 Posters_Air Service
(J or T) Paul Verreel
Join the Air Service, 1917
Poster, 37 x 25 ¼”
Bruce Museum Collection,
Gift of Beverly and John Watling
5_WW1 Posters_Liberty Bonds
Artist unknown
Buy Liberty Bonds, 1917
Poster, 30 ¼ “ x 20 ¼”
Bruce Museum Collection,
Gift of Beverly and John Watling
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3_WW1 Posters_Gee Navy
Howard Chandler Christy (American 1873-1952)
Gee!! I Wish I Were a Man…, 1917
Poster, 41 ¼ x 27 ¼ ”
Bruce Museum Collection,
Gift of Beverly and John Watling