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Title: Try Trying
Description: Just as workplace posters had motivated war-weary workers and citizens on the home front during World War I, posters continued to play a key role in communications in the decades after the war. Charles Mather, of Chicago, Illinois, made his mark in this field, producing a catalog of more than 350 posters to help managers motivate their workers. The airplane was just one of a multitude of images that illustrated the snappy motivational statements that characterized Mather’s Constructive Organization Posters. A beaver devouring a forest of trees set the scene for a tribute to efficiency—“Waste Hurts Us All: Little Wastes of Time, Money and Material Gnaw at the Roots of Business;” A rugged football player hugs a recently caught football and fends off unseen attackers—“Touchdown: Keeping Clear of Gangs Keeps You Clear of Interference, You’re Out to Win;” |
In another, a circus acrobat balances in a one-handed handstand on the back of a galloping horse—“Making Sure, Makes a Hit, Getting Instructions Clear Gets the Work Done Right, Guesses Make Mistakes.” Until “Try Trying” was published in 1929, Mather’s posters had not featured aviation as a motivational image. While Americans were certainly amazed by aviation, it was Charles Lindbergh’s solo, non-stop, transatlantic flight that enchanted and convinced them that aviation was viable and those who flew, enviable. This poster was presumably one of the last that the Mather Company printed. After the 1929 stock market crash, jobs were hard to find and those lucky enough to land one worked hard to keep themselves employed. Copyrighted 1929, Mather & Company |
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