The focus of today’s Artifact Spotlight is this World War I “Columbia Calls” recruitment poster.
MSS29.1.1
Convinced that the US entering the war was inevitable, Frances Adams Halsted wrote a poem, Columbia Calls, in 1916. After America entered World War I on April 6, 1917, Halsted donated her poem and accompanying image design to the U.S. War Department. Three months later, the New York Times announced plans to print 500,000 copies as a poster; over one million copies were eventually printed. This poster therefore dates to about that year.
The poster is torn on the bottom right and the corner is missing, but most of the text remains. The original poster was painted by Vincent Aderente.
The poster was found in the Museum’s map cabinet with no provenance or donation information - if you know the donor, please let us know! Unfortunately, our copy of this poster is in extremely poor condition and cannot go out on display.