This American poster advertises the U.S. government’s approval to sell the Lincoln PT, a popular aircraft throughout the 1930s that debuted in 1929, to private citizens. The biplane was used as a training mechanism for flying schools, in both primary and secondary training, and was equipped with new Brownback C-400 “Tiger” engines. While the “lean and lanky open cockpit biplane with seating for two in tandem” was “primarily designed for pilot training,” it was also used as a popular sports plane: “kept bare of frills and fancy finery but not to the point of gaunt nakedness [the Lincoln PT] did present a neat appearance that would also be of some interest to the economy minded sportsman pilot.

More is imbued in this poster, however, than just an announcement of congressional approval – there is rich historical context: by 1930, the year this poster was published, American aviation was in crisis. In the early twentieth century air shows had aroused popular interest in aviation fetes and stunts. In the mid-to-late 1920s, however, the aviation industry faced major obstacles in providing safe and consistent industry practices. Famed aviator Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh was an outspoken proponent for the implementation of rigid regulations and standardized safety procedures. Lindbergh was part of a group including Charles L. Lawrence, President of the Wright Brothers Aeronautical Association, and Harry F. Guggenheim, President of the Daniel Guggenheim Foundation Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, who brought awareness of inconsistent safety practices to the American public. The practices condemned by Lindbergh and his colleagues are unimaginable today with contemporary safety regulations:

Many of our schools, however, are still advertising on the basis of their low cost. Students are graduated from flying courses with ten hours or so in the air. These men cannot operate under Federal licenses, but in a number of States they can carry on commercial flying with passengers, providing they do not cross the State boundary. Accidents due to improper training will continue to an excessive degree as long as Federal inspectors have no control over intra-State flying activity (New York Times, October, 6, 1928).

Lindbergh and his colleagues urged the U.S. government to take steps to universalize standards, on the belief that not only would they augment flight safety, but that these changes would also secure the longevity of the American aviation industry.

A majority of the accidents in flying are due to faulty pilotage. There are two methods of decreasing these accidents – by the training and regulation of pilots, and by the advance of aerodynamic design of aircraft so that less is required of the operater and more of the airplane. (New York Times, October, 6, 1928).

Likewise, it is this latter statement – the call for regulating aircraft design – that is particularly relevant to this poster. While congressional approval of aircraft design and sales is something contemporary Americans take for granted, such an event was significant when Congress approved the sale of the Lincoln PT in 1930, as advertised in this poster.
The historical context surrounding this poster also tells another narrative: perhaps more notable than the Lincoln PT itself, is the complex visual culture surrounding aviation posters in the United States during the early twentieth-century.

The poster culture developed rapidly with the United States’ involvement in World War I: “After America’s entry into the war in 1917 poster production [ ] was highly organized…artists offered designs free to government departments and other organizations, and produced a staggering total of 1,438 drawings in all.” While the poster culture became quite sophisticated in the United States during this period, it would be a misstatement to identify the trend as a uniquely American phenomenon. The poster trend in America was part of a broader “international interest in posters” leading up to, during, and after WWI. Each nation’s posters had an “unmistakably national flavor.” For example, French posters tended to be more text-heavy, while German posters would often feature one dominant image and limited text. Despite aesthetic differences, posters quickly – and universally – became tools of propaganda with the outbreak of WWI. They were an integral part of the “psychological warfare which became intense in the first world war.”

By the onset of WWII, in the United States in particular, visual culture became an even more ubiquitous form of mass communication. Vast amounts of WWII memorabilia depict patriotic and propagandistic messages. Examples include comics, patriotic-slogan-embossed cigars, “Hitler-the-Squealing-Pig” piggy banks, Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito ashtrays, and “Don’t Get Caught With Your Pants Down: Remember Pearl Harbor” men’s underpants.