Join the brave throng, ca. 1915.
All images are digitized | All jpegs/tiffs display outside Library of Congress | View All
Related Resources
In P&P | World War I Posters in Other Institutions
Related Visual Materials in the Prints & Photographs Division
In addition to the Division's strong holdings of World War I posters, the war is substantially represented in other media, including:
- news photographs, including the George Grantham Bain Collection, National Photo Company Collection, and the Harris & Ewing Collection
- panoramic photographs
- stereograph cards
- graphic items, including cartoon drawings, master drawings, fine prints, and Cabinet of American Illustration drawings.
Many catalog record descriptions include a standard reference to World War I; others make indirect reference in original captions. Descriptions often include a date or range of dates, but date searches are not precise, as the date may reflect when the item was created, the time period for the subject, or birth and death dates of people mentioned in the record.
The following search terms yield a rich cross-section of the division's holdings:
- World War, 1914-1918 (this is the standard heading for the war; a list of subdivisions that are used with names of wars is available at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm1/app-c.html). Also types of warfare employed, e.g. Trench warfare
- Place names associated with key events, e.g., Argonne, Brest, Flander's Field. (Combining a place name with a date for the decade or years in which the war occurred can narrow results, although somewhat imprecisely: e.g., Belgium 1910)
- Terms for participants, e.g., American Expeditionary Forces, soldiers, nurses, Red Cross, refugees. (Combining a term with a date for the decade or years in which the war occurred can narrow results, although somewhat imprecisely: e.g., United States. Army 1910)
- Terms for weapons and transportation used in the war combined with the decade or years in which the war occurred, e.g., biplanes, kites (military) . (Combining a term with a date for the decade or years in which the war occurred can narrow results, although somewhat imprecisely: e.g.,artillery 1910)
World War I Posters Outside the Library of Congress
Disclaimer The Library of Congress does not maintain these sites. Users should direct concerns about these links to their respective site administrators or webmasters.
Archives of Ontario
More than 200 World War I posters from Canada, the United
Kingdom, and the United States. Online exhibition includes
a selection of the Canadian posters from World War I:
http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/on-line-exhibits/posters/index.aspx
Ball State University
Bracken Library - Archives and Special
Collections
The Elisabeth Ball Collection of World War I posters
includes over 2,000 lithographs from both sides of the war.
Digital presentation:
http://libx.bsu.edu/collection.php?CISOROOT=/WWIPosters
Colorado College
Tutt Library
An online exhibition of more than 300 World War I era
posters organized by place, organization, or U.S.
Government Department from the Tutt Library Special
Collections:
http://www.coloradocollege.edu/library/SpecialCollections/HistoricalCollections/WWI/WWIGuide.html
Georgetown University Libraries
Lauinger Library
Special Collections
World War I posters in the collection of Roger N. Mohovich, acquired in 1997 as a gift from his heirs. Online exhibits from the collection include:
- Take Up the Sword of Justice: British Posters
of World War One from the Roger N. Mohovich
Collection
http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/britpost/britpost.htm - First Call: American Posters of World
War
http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/guac/amposter_99/
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Thousands of World War I posters, primarily from the U.S., but also from other countries. Political poster database: http://hoohila.stanford.edu/poster/index.php
National Archives and Records Administration
Still Picture Unit
Posters from several record groups document U.S. government campaigns during World War I, as well as some non-U.S. posters. Strong representation is found in: RG 53-WP (Treasury Department), RG 45-WP (Office of Naval Records and Library), and RG 4-P (U.S. Food Administration). For overviews of relevant record groups, see: Guide to the Holdings of the Still Picture Branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, compiled by Barbara Lewis Burger, 1990: http://www.archives.gov/research/formats/still-pictures-guide.html. Samples have been digitized and are available through the Archival Research Catalog (ARC): http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/ .
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution
Archives Center
Includes Princeton University Poster Collection, consisting of more than ten thousand posters, with a particular emphasis on World War I and World War II posters. View summary: http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=all&source=~!siarchives&uri=full=3100001~!174512~!0#focus
University of Minnesota Libraries and the
Minneapolis Public Library
Digital presentation of a collection of posters and
postcards from both world wars includes more than one
thousand multi-national World War I posters:
http://digital.lib.umn.edu/warposters/
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
University Archives and Special Collections
Online exhibit of American and French posters, with
particular attention to food issues and YMCA posters:
http://www.unl.edu/libr/libs/spec/exhibits/wwIposters/index.html.
University of North Texas
Rare Book and Texana Collections
More than fifty World War I posters, including French and
American posters. Digital collections search:
http://www.digital.library.unt.edu/browse/department/rarebooks/wwpc/