Food Will Win the War

Why it works

Herbert Hoover's new U.S. Food Administration needed Americans to save wheat for the Allies, and this 1917 poster aimed that request at one audience in particular: recent immigrants. Charles Edward Chambers paints new arrivals at a dock in New York harbour, the Statue of Liberty under a rainbow behind them, and the copy states the bargain plainly: you came here seeking freedom, now you must help to preserve it; waste nothing. The Gilder Lehrman Institute notes that the poster was also produced in Yiddish, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian to reach immigrant communities. The Yiddish edition shown here was, in the Hood Museum of Art's reading, aimed at Jewish immigrants and tied patriotism to belonging, implying that newcomers owed something for their welcome. It is studied as an early example of in-language, community-targeted government advertising, and of a voluntary conservation appeal that worked through identity and gratitude rather than rules. The Library of Congress holds both English and Yiddish versions.