War bonds. Feed the guns! Thomas, Bert, 1915 It was supposed to be the “the war to end war” but unfortunately it wasn't. And in addition to the horror of the battlefield (ten million men killed) WWI also featured a battle of propaganda. Thanks to its newly digitized collection of over 100 propaganda posters from WWI the Ransom Center gives us a front row seat to the battle to win the hearts and minds of the American people and its allies as well as the enemy attempts to do the same. Keep these off the U.S.A. Buy more liberty bonds. John Norton, ca. 1917 The...
‘Marvels & Monsters’: Unmasking Asian Images in U.S. Comics
“Yellow Claw” #1, Atlas Comics, October 1956. (Marjean Magazine Corp.) The Japanese American National Museum, in collaboration with NYU's Asian/Pacific/American Institute and the Fales Library & Special Collections, present “Marvels & Monsters: Unmasking Asian Images in U.S. Comics, 1942-1986.” The exhibit highlights racial and cultural images of Asians that appeared in comic books from WWII through the mid-1980's. The very same images that defined and still fuel America’s perceptions and stereotypes of Asians. Unknown Soldier #221 (November 1978), DC Comics, Inc. [DC].The exhibition is curated by “Asian Pop” columnist Jeff Yang and is culled from the collection of William F. Wu, a noted science fiction...
The Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center
This installment of In The Stacks takes us to The Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center. The museum was founded by Yang Pei Ming who started collecting posters in 1995, the year the Chinese government ceased the long-standing practice of creating these propaganda-laced posters.The collection is "dedicated to documenting the changes of modern China as depicted on thousands upon thousands of striking posters from 1910 to 1990."The collection holds 6000 posters produced from 1940 to 1990. The museum also holds a significant collection of Shanghai Lady Calendar posters from 1910 to 1940.Shanghai Lady Calendar posterNPR's Shanghai correspondent Frank Langfitt pays a visit to the museumPreviously on In...
Medical Library’s Contagious Exhibit Sure To Go Viral
She may be…a bag of TROUBLE. Syphilis – Gonorrhea.U.S. Public Health Service,United States, 1940s.Photomechanical print: color; 41 x 51 cm. Artist: "Christian."A sultry, heavily-made-up woman squints provocatively, while smoking a cigarette. WWII posters usually addressed men, and fingered promiscuous women as the source of contagion.They are an unholy alliance of science, art, medicine, politics, history, advertising, and propaganda. Dramatic images use visual shorthand to convey danger, disease, and death. Shadows, crowds, skeletons, vermin, blob-like micro-organisms, and sinister sick-o's threaten innocent men, women, and children. But these aren't posters for grindhouse horror flicks from the fabulous 50's. They're government issue placards...