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Title: The American Eagle’s Prey
Description: Many modern office workers are familiar with variously-themed motivational posters that often appear in rooms or hallways and use photographs and text to inspire greater commitment and productivity. |
This World War I-era poster the viewer seems to be a forerunner of those modern posters, a print designed to instill a “spirit of accomplishment” in those workers seeing it, a spirit likened to that of the U.S. government, personified in “Uncle Sam.” Unlike modern motivational posters, however, this one is styled more as a cartoon frame, and a fairly cluttered one at that. On the right, three figures representing the belligerent Central Powers of the war (Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire), shout at their fleet of U-boats (note the “U” on the conning towers—Unterseeboot is the German word for submarine), or submarines, which are fleeing from an aerial attack led by the figure of Uncle Sam. On the left, figures personifying the Allies (Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy) cheer on the American onslaught, shouting to Uncle Sam, flying high above, to chase off the submarines, then “send your ships and their loads safely to our shores!” Uncle Sam himself proclaims that “[he] furnished both the submarine and the aeroplane to the world. It is only right if I seek to destroy one with the other!” His airplane is shown launching a torpedo at the submarine fleet, one member of which appears to be sinking in the left mid-ground. The phrase “furnishing” the world with the submarine most likely refers to the American inventor David Bushnell’s Turtle, the first submersible vessel to attack an enemy ship, in 1776 during the American Revolution. The reference to the aeroplane refers to Wilbur and Orville Wright’s 1903 Wright Flyer. Although the poster paints an aggressive picture of Uncle Sam and his American forces attacking German submarines, sending them fleeing into their pens, the image is not an accurate depiction. In World War I, airplanes did not have any particular success in destroying submarines, with weather often proving to be a detriment to aerial operations. As well, German submarine technology improved, with such inventions as the “altiscope” allowing U-boat captains to search the skies for hostile planes before surfacing. Although airplanes patrolling for submarines did result in an increased number of sub sightings in 1918 versus 1917, proportionally there was not much of an improvement, given the number of hours flown versus the number of submarine spottings. While aircraft did not possess much in the way of an anti-submarine arsenal, they did act as a deterrent to submarine activity against shipping traffic, such as convoys, reducing the loss of vessels and forcing U-boats to switch to nighttime operations. The airplane flown by the Uncle Sam figure does not represent any particular type in detail. The artist’s purpose here is to imply the numbers of Americans massing to aid the Allies in 1917. The poster is unconditionally optimistic: once Uncle Sam and America head “over there,” the Central Powers, beginning with their destructive U-boats, would run for cover. The poster’s can-do message sought to inspire workers in factories and offices in which the poster was hung. If “Uncle Sam will accomplish anything he sets out to do,” then,it seems to say “the same spirit of accomplishment pervades this place of business.” |
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