13 striking vintage wartime posters that play on our emotions using mercy, honor, and 'gold and glory'

National Museum of the U.S. Navy Follow/Flickr

Wartime posters are often striking, evocative images.

"The function of the poster today is to appeal to our subconscious feelings and our barely conscious needs and channel them so that we do what the sponsor of the poster wants us to do," writes Max Gallo in "The Poster in History."

Given the likelihood of devastation and mass loss of life in war, it takes a powerful illustration to convince people to support a war effort.

Online retail site Abebooks recently rounded up a collection of US, English, and Chinese vintage posters from the Mexican Revolution, WWI, and WWII. Many sought to push men to enlist, encourage women to volunteer, and convince everyone on the homefront to make financial contributions.

In order to accomplish those goals, these posters appeal to just about everything, including honor, mercy, and "gold and glory":

Charles Buckles Falls illustrated this WWI recruiting poster, which depicts the commanding gaze of a beckoning sergeant, for the US Marines.

AbeBooks.com

This 1920 poster dangles "gold and glory," along with famed Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, to encourage US citizens to travel south and fight in the Mexican Revolution.

AbeBooks.com

This 1917 World War I poster appealed to national pride to recruit British ex-pats living in New York.

AbeBooks.com


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