How to Sell a War

One hundred years ago, Europe was at war. The United States was not. The First World War (or, as it was know at the time, the only World War) started in July of 1914 when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. It did not take long for most of the rest of Europe to take sides. America managed to watch from a distance until spring of 1917 almost three years later.

Why the three-year gap? Until early 1917, most Americans were of the opinion that we should stay out of what was seen as a very European problem. What changed public opinion? The sinking of the Lusitania (with 128 Americans on board) and reports of German atrocities slowly shifted attitudes away from the let’s-stay-out-of-that-mess faction towards the we-need-to-help-keep-the-world-safe-for-democracy camp.

Oh yeah, and then there were the posters. To sell the war to a wary public, the US government hired some of the countries best illustrators to “advertise” the war effort. And according to this article in Smithsonian, those posters really did help sell the war to the American public.