"I Summon You To Comradeship" Red Cross WWI Home Front Poster by Leo Mielziner (1918)

The words on this poster, taken from a quote in a speech given after a surprise appearance at a Red Cross parade during their "Second Fund Drive" in May, 1918, are spoken by president Woodrow Wilson, whose gray sketched profile looms in the background, staring without emotion at the viewer. Beneath him is his signature and the small, red logo of the Red Cross. The image of one's president looking at and speaking directly to them, asking them to donate to the Red Cross, is simple and without flair. The promise to join the "comradeship" is enticing and, indeed, the largest part of the text, but the persuasiveness of the poster seems to lie in Wilson's gaunt image, the idea being that the American viewer will feel compelled to obey their president.