Enlistment
"An education for you. Join the tanks U.S. Army," 1918. This United States Army Tank Corps recruitment poster emphasizes the ability to learn a new skill in the armed services. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library via Digital Commonwealth.
To encourage those who had little or no military experience, the United States government marketed the draft with an enlistment campaign that made use of visual propaganda. Posters and other advertisements promised enlistees the opportunity to learn new life skills through education, such as repairing machinery and the less broadly applicable art of flying. The images, with their sinewy, all-American figures and heroic scenes, were intended to spark the viewer’s patriotic spirit.
Temporary recruitment offices were set up in public places throughout the country, including one on the Common in Boston, Massachusetts.
