'The Uncle Sam Range'
Abendroth Bros (1876)
'Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?'
Savile Lumley (1915)
Aside from the very different time and audience of the two images, they both share a common theme of an ideal lifestyle or 'the way you should be' relative to the country that each individual viewing the posters would represent. The top picture is an advertisement for a range (old style cooker). The picture is made to try and sell the cooker, and it does this by using hugely American symbology. The idea is to make the cooker desirable and it does this using aspirations of being the 'perfect American'. Similarly, the image below uses the idea of an ideal lifestyle but for a British audience. The poster was commissioned by the British Army to convince people to sign up as soldiers during World War 1. This was because the war was in to its second year by now, and no one had really appreciated or foreseen the damage that would be done to the British forces.
There are 2 general ideas for the meaning of the man's expression in this poster, but the most commonly accepted idea behind this image is that the man is shameful for not having fought in the 'Great War', convincing citizens to join the army out of guilt and fear of not having the best life possible.
In a very similar way, the top image advertising the range is saying that buying the cooker will make your life better but in a very typical advertisement fashion.
The text in the bottom poster uses a really different style to the advertisement, looking much more like a script based natural handwriting font than the thick, squared off edges above. It does this to give a more natural feeling to the poster and also relates directly to the girl on the man’s lap. If the same text as the advertisement were used, it would not look at all like the girl was even saying anything. In this way it becomes clear that the daughter is the one posing the question, and the idea that a large fully grown man should be able to disappoint a tiny young girl is almost a humiliating thought. The poster above this uses its text to appear bolder and eye catching, also relating slightly to the time of the Wild West. This was roughly the right era for the historic ‘Gold Rush’ and the text connotes these feelings of wealth and prosperity coming from an average background. Again, this is another link to the ‘American Dream’ which mostly comprises of wealth and status.
Both images also implement colour and symbology to support their ideas. The top advertisement for the range uses a lot of red white and blue across all of the room’s furnishings. The colours themselves appear in several flags across the world, but the stars and stripes make them clearly relevant to the
Both images clearly know how to affect each audience as best as they can, both subtly and completely obviously. In a way, both images are trying to manipulate their audiences into doing something which they otherwise would not have. Neither of the images are informing a person, they are persuading them.
