Vintage Poster Archives
WW1 Recruitment 1917 | Even a Dog Enlists US Army
WW1 Recruitment 1917 | Even a Dog Enlists US Army
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A German Shepherd in a white Red Cross harness stands on a mound of rubble. Behind it, a city burns: flat slate-blue silhouettes of a church and shattered buildings consumed by diagonal streaks of red-orange flame against a saturated amber sky. At the foot of the poster, bold cream block capitals ask: EVEN A DOG ENLISTS / WHY NOT YOU?
Designed by American illustrator Mildred T. Moody and lithographed by Galloway Litho Co. of San Francisco around 1917, this ww1 recruitment poster was a regional issue, produced for the US Army's recruiting station at 660 Market Street, San Francisco. While Howard Chandler Christy and James Montgomery Flagg were producing the nationally distributed wartime posters of the period, Moody's design took a different approach, forgoing martial heroism in favour of a single, quietly challenging image: a working dog, already in service, looking back at the viewer. Dogs served the First World War in significant numbers, carrying first-aid kits, acting as sentries, and locating wounded soldiers on the battlefield. The Red Cross harness worn by the dog in Moody's design is specific and accurate. Examples of the poster are held in the collections of the Imperial War Museum, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the National Museum of American History. A copy sold at Swann Galleries for $10,795.
Reproduced from archival sources as a 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper print, pigment-based inks on a natural white, smooth matte surface.
Of interest to collectors of American First World War graphic design, military history researchers, and those drawn to the period's regional printed ephemera.
