Your Country Needs You

[MichaelBully]

Good to have you back James. I'll have to be honest and say that I've got no idea. Will ponder this one and if I can think of an answer I'll post.

Any more talks /events planned for your book?

Regards

Michael Bully

Hello Martyn, Michael and fellow thread followers,

Wonder if followers could clarify a claim made by Professor Gary Sheffield and Anthony Quinn that Eric Field devised the slogan 'Your Country Needs You'. A claim that supports a central pillar propping up the popularity of this poster by the camp who believe that Your Country Needs You' was the dominant poster of the war.

I thought Eric Field devised the slogan 'Your King and Country Need You' for Hedley Le Bas before the official declaration of war, and this became the official recruiting slogan at the outset?

Any thoughts?

James

[funfly]

I can't see that Eric Field devised the phrase "Your Country Needs You" because the slogan was on an artwork designed for the front page of a magazine not for a poster.

If you look at the front page of the London Opinion 5th. September 1914 (where the Leete artwork was used) you will notice the use of a similar turn of phrase;

"This paper insures YOU for £1,000"

and

"50 Photographs of YOU for a shilling"

So it would seem very likely that the wording used across the front was co-ordinated for maximum effect.

I will ask Antony Quinn for his comments and report back.

Very few people subscribe to the view that "Your Country Needs You" was the dominant poster of the war. Most educated researchers consider that it was just one of many thousands that contributed to the overall advertising campaign. I believe that when people refer to the poster they mean the best remembered recruiting poster of the Great War and they are certainly correct in that respect. The other extreme, that there are no records of the poster on display in 1914 and it was only seen post-war on publicity of the IWM - a theory first put forward by Nicholas Hiley in 1997 - has also well and truly been debunked.

[JamesMSTaylor]

Thanks for the welcome back Michael, It's a very busy year with many NADFAS talks and also a presentation at the NPG and National Library of Wales and various lit festivals.

Hi Martyn, would be good to probe further into the Eric Field question and also the rankings given by advertising companies (Campaign) to the recuitment posters of WWI claiming that the YCNY poster was a very popular one.

I keep coming across 'educated' folk who believe that the YCNY was the dominant of poster of the war in the UK, Australia and New Zealand and a they include a number of professors. It's a hard myth to shift.

Do you remember the PROPAGANDA: Power and Persuasion exhibition at the British Library 17 May – 17 September 2013. An excellent show.

Although if you look at Chapter 3 of the exhibition catalogue by Professor David Welch ‘Your country needs you’ - The propaganda of war“ he states

"One of the enduring images of the war – much copied and parodied since – remains the distinctive poster of Lord Kitchener’s heavily moustachioed face and intimidating finger imploring the British population that "Your Country Needs YOU’”.

We share a passion for the subject of art and design of WWI and as all followers already know there are areas that we hold differences of opinion.

Surely there must be one British university out there prepared to organise a forum allowing discussion and debate to take place on this subject? Perhaps in 2015. That gives plenty of time.

James

[JamesMSTaylor]

Apologises for a second post in rapid succession. Martyn do you know who is behind the Lord Kitchener WIKI website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kitchener_Wants_You

There are some odd references and a claim about an original ‘Your Country Needs You’ poster. It states on the site: “Another version of Kitchener poster with the caption "Your Country Needs YOU", dating from September 1914”. However when you click on the poster and examine the source and information it can be traced back to a cropped detail from the Library of Congress’ news-stand poster issued by London Opinion to promote the magazine issue of 5 September 1914.

James

[JamesMSTaylor]

I forgot to give the link to Anthony Quinn's Magforum. A fascinating online information source that is "vetted by academic portals...."

http://www.magforum.com/mens/london-opinion.htm

Has part of the text, highlighted in bold below, changed overnight from 'Your Country Needs You' to 'Your King and Country Need You'?

"In 2002, Leete's iconic Kitchener poster was nominated as 'the best recruitment advert of all time' by advertising trade weekly Campaign. Eric Field was identified as the copywriter and Caxton Advertising the agency for the various versions - Field had coined 'Your King and Country Need You' for the first recruitment advertising in newspapers the week that WWI broke out."

James

[funfly]

I think if you read carefully Tony Quinn was stating what the Campaign had said in 2002 rather than his own observations.

[JamesMSTaylor]

Perhaps Professors Sheffield and Welch are followers of MagForum? It offers a remarkable range of intriguing material and is well worth looking out in detail. Could the London Opinion section though have helped unwittingly to propagate the myth about the popularity of the 'Your Country Needs You' poster I wonder?

As a fan of the Leete's designs and Leete himself I wonder if this might also be a muddle "London Opinion's editor and Leete (1882-1933), was a printer from Weston-super-Mare..."

Although there was a printer with the surnamee Leete I not aware of Alfred Leete being be a printer but I might be mistaken. Can anyone throw any light on that? Did Leete really become editor of London Opinion? If he did that would certainly prove once and for all that men are multi-taskers.

I notice my book is not credited on the Magforum site or on the Wiki site refered to above. But perhaps that might magically change overnight?

James

[MichaelBully]

Like the idea of a debate with Martyn and James discussing the 'Kitchener poster ' together.

Hope you will both keep us posted re. relevant events.

Regards

Michael Bully

[JamesMSTaylor]

Hello Michael, thanks for your post. It would be a good event and could include several contributors. Martyn appears to have gone off radar at present!

How are your interests going?

James

[funfly]

Quite an interesting series of articles here, especially a number of views about how the war actually started.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww1

[MichaelBully]

Have messaged you James. Still intrigued by this debate. My own Kitchener research has stalled following the publication of 'Haig and Kitchener in Twentieth -Century Britain, Remembrance, Representation and Appropriation' by Stephen Heathorn. Still waiting for said book to drop in price .

Regards

Michael Bully

Hello Michael, thanks for your post. It would be a good event and could include several contributors. Martyn appears to have gone off radar at present!

How are your interests going?

James

[funfly]

The recruiting poster from 1914 printed initially by the London Opinion showing a pointing Kitchener with the words "Your Country Needs YOU" and "Britons, Kitchener Needs You" is probably the best-remembered poster from the Great War and is worthy of a place in this forum.

No-one nowadays is totally sure how widely seen the poster was at the time and whether or not it was a major contributor to the recruitement campaign. Current thoughts are that it simply contributed with the thousands of other posters, to the vaste numbers of men who volunteered for the Armed Services. However it did have an impact that immediately persuaded other nations to copy it and, for whatever reason, the image and words are still used today.

We have been fortunate in the Great War forum to have been able to discuss this iconic poster and it's many incarnations. Contributors have revealed a fascinating insight into the many manifestations of the poster and have been able to supply articles and photographs of great interest to researchers and fellow enthusiasts. I hope we will continue to discuss it here.

There are many published articles and books dedicated to this poster and perhaps the following four are the most relevent - the latter two being the most current;

Hiley N. (1997) ‘Kitchener Wants You and Daddy what did YOU do in the Great War?: the Myth of British recruiting posters’, Smith J. & Simpkins (eds) Imperial War Musium Review No.11.

Ginzburg C. (2001) ‘Your country needs you: a case study in political iconography’, History Workshop Journal. No. 52

Taylor J. (2013) Your Country Needs You: The secret history of the ultimate propaganda poster. Glasgow: Saraband

Thatcher M. & Quinn A. (2013) The Amazing Story of the Kitchener Poster. Chester: Funfly Design

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Very interesting, here are 4 versions of the ' Kitchener ' poster I was able to find.

Regards,

LF

[Indefatigable]

I recently watched a recording of the film "The Magic Box" a biopic on William Friese Greene (it was shown on BBC 2 early one weekend morning). The 2nd poster shown above was shown on a hoarding for the Royal Sussex Regiment and is featured when three of his sons join up. It is about 22-24 minutes in to the film for those interested. The film itself was made for the Festival of Britain in 1951.

[Moonraker]

This seems very familiar? Am I right in thinking that the original thread has disappeared? The last time I looked at it, it was getting a bit fraught.

Moonraker

[AlanCurragh]

The original thread has been hidden - it will hopefully be possible to restore it but as you say, it was getting "fraught"

[MichaelBully]

I had noticed thread had vanished from 'My Content' ! Totally respect moderator's discretion in such matters but hope thread can be restored, perhaps to a time when the discussion didn't become so fraught.as there was some great material there.

Regards

Michael Bully

The original thread has been hidden - it will hopefully be possible to restore it but as you say, it was getting "fraught"

[Moonraker]

It seemed to be running quite smoothly until a recent post or two. Perhaps these could be deleted, the rest restored and the thread locked? As always, the mods may be taking behind-the-scenes action (bit like ACAS - the Advisory, Conciliation & Arbitration Service).

Moonraker

[funfly]

It was my hope that we don't use this Phoenix thread to discuss matters not related to the Kitchener poster but continue our valuable contribution to our understanding of this piece of history.

I haven't caught a glimpse of it recently in any of the recent TV programs.

Martyn

[AlanCurragh]

The old thread has been reopened and the new one merged into it - some recent comments have been removed. Please can pals ensure any future posts stay on topic, and within the rules and spirit of the forum

Thank you

Alan

[JamesMSTaylor]

Time to draw the line underneath and move along.. Martyn thank you for starting the Phoenix thread. Michael thanks for your messages.

Informed debate in good spirit rather than pugnacious duelling is the way forward as Alan mentions above.

There is no doubt that finger-pointing designs printed on fine art paper, on picture postcards, adverts, and in poster form were publicly seen before and during the war. Interestingly many were not related to Kitchener at all. There were commerical advertisments including prior to the war David Allen and Sons popular tobacco campaign in poster with James Motherwell (information revealled in earlier posts within this forum thread) pointing out to the viewer to sell cigs.

I don't think sufficient credit is given to the powerful influence of London Opinion magazine itself that was around A4 in size and less than thrirty thin pages - making it easy to reference and store. This magazine was sent around the world. Copies would have been seen (along with many other mags too) by the Society of Illustrators in New York eager to see what their European counterparts were up to. A founder member of the US society was James Montgomery Flagg. He almost certainly saw Leete's design on the cover magazine. He first created his Uncle Sam variant as a cover design for Leslie's magazine and only when the US came into the war as an associate power did he transform it into the poster we know today. Arguably one of the most familiar designs after the stars and stripes flag.

London Opinion was selling around 260,000 copies a week in the early weeks of the war (300,000 copies before the war) which gives an idea of its popularity.

I have found a German cartoon lampooning British recruitment posters including the Leete's YCNY design that is sourced from the cover of London Opinion rather than a known poster.

I am not sure if anyone has seen 'War Memories of David Lloyd George' Volume I, Odhams Press, London, 1938. It is avaibable free online. Again you will see an illustration captioned 'The famous poster placarded throughout the country to helped in recruiting Kitchener's Army. The image is credited to the Imperial War Museum and appears to be a touched up image of Leete's YCNY design for the cover of London Opinion.

LF your postings of finger pointing images are interesting. From left to right - the first is a poor black and white reproduction of the BRITONS poster. The second is a central detail from the news-stand poster advertising the sale of London Opinion magazine 5 September 1914 from the Library of Congress. This has gone viral as a supposed poster. The third is not a poster at all (even though Robert Opie claims it is). I have one in my collection. It is a picture postcard that cheekily adapted Leete's design. Within the pages of London Opinion on 26th September you will see a comment from the editor talking about the recent production of this image - 'YOU Are The Man I Want'. The fourth is the photoshoped colour image of the Imperial War Museum's BRITONS poster that they acquired in the 1950s.

James

.

[David Ridgus]

Very interesting, here are 4 versions of the ' Kitchener ' poster I was able to find.

Regards,

LF

Here's a fifth version which is from later in the war

Perhaps denoting the slight change in attitude, the simple appeal to patriotic duty is here supplemented with the rates of pay!

David

PS I will take a picture of my Kitchener wall in my classroom tomorrow. All the above images and so many more modern versions

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Here's a fifth version which is from later in the war

Nice version, I had not seen that one before.

Regards,

LF

[JamesMSTaylor]

That is a fascianting poster. I remember seeing it with Leete's original artwork for London Opinion in Duxford where almost all the posters are stored. Thanks to this forum we have now have one sighting of the poster in a photograph credited to Getty.

I tried so many places to find photographs of the Leete finger pointing posters and variants during WWI the mind still boggles. Ironically I also tried several times at the National Railway Museum and drew a blank there. Perhaps research assistants were not tuned in then to the WWI material as they clearly are now. As most now know here there is an excellent example from Liverpool.

Keep digging away....

JT

[johnboy]

I am still baffled why the poster does not appear in many more photos of the time.

Does anyone know if the poster was seen on the outside of buses?