|
|
 |
Title: Over There/Skilled Workers
Description: Calling all careers! Whether you work with wood or metal, drive a motorcycle or sew cloth, the Air Service wants you and your skills. That is the recruiting message of this poster, designed to draw men to America’s new air arm, men who could keep the newest weapon, the airplane, flying and fighting. From chauffeurs to photographers, and “40 other trades,” skilled workers were needed, and fast, because America had entered the war and the Air Service had to meet a host of new challenges immediately. The rallying cry of “Over There!” in reference to the war in France had been introduced to America via George M. Cohan’s famous patriotic song with that title, composed by Cohan in 1917 and, according to him, inspired by America’s recent entry into the war in April. |
The song swiftly gained publicity, giving Americans their own wartime hit equivalent to Europe’s “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” It captured the enthusiasm of the United States as the populace prepared to enter combat on the Continent, and this poster draws directly on that enthusiasm and the song that fed it. The Latin phrase “Pro Patria” seen in the middle left of the poster means “For the Fatherland,” is taken from a famous line in an ode by the Latin poet Horace, “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” which may be translated as “how sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.” This sentiment had been taught to the classically-educated youth of Europe, and it was a sentiment carried with them onto the battlefield when the war began. But in the face of the horrible death and destruction faced there, it became a sentiment mocked in disillusionment by the British poet Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), himself a casualty, in his antiwar poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” describing the terrors of combat at the front, including a gas attack. In the poem’s last line, Owen describes the “dulce et decorum” ideal as the “old Lie,” reflecting the tremendous disillusionment felt in the face of the new warfare’s realities. The artist here gives us a stylized airplane taking to the sky, flying into what appears to be the sun, while a similarly stylized line of aircraft await duty in the background hangar. The mechanic, who has possibly just finished servicing the craft, waves, having contributed his own skills to the war effort. His upraised hand bisects the “O” in “Over There!” drawing attention to that cry, while his lowered hand, clasping a wrench, takes the reader’s (and potential recruit’s) eye toward “Skilled Workers,” juxtaposing the tool and the phrase and highlighting the need that the poster advertises. Grey and white are used for the air-related imagery and text, while olive drab and black highlight the mechanic and the text relating to him and his brethren of skilled workers required by the nascent Air Service. |
|
  |
|