Snapshots of the Past

Times are hard your Majesty - you leave us nothing to do"" – Historic Reproduction

Times are hard your Majesty - you leave us nothing to do"", [ca. 1918] — vintage poster
Times are hard your Majesty - you leave us nothing to do"", [ca. 1918]. Vintage poster from the World War I collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: Times are hard your Majesty - you leave us nothing to do"", preserved in this vintage poster. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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Times are hard your Majesty - you leave us nothing to do""

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Here the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, is the target of a caption that reverses the usual blame: the devil, the poster suggests, has nothing left to do because the Kaiser has taken over his work. It belongs to a patriotic series issued under the name Barron Collier, an advertising executive who ran color poster campaigns in the United States during the First World War. The joke rests on the idea that German wartime conduct was so wicked it outdid Satan, a common theme in Allied propaganda that cast the conflict as civilization against barbarism. Printed around 1918, it shows how American wartime art turned a sitting head of state into a stock villain.

Created / published[ca. 1918]
Medium1 photomechanical print (poster) : offset, color.
GenreWar posters American 1910-1920.Offset photomechanical prints Color 1910-1920.
NotesBarron Collier patriotic series No. 2.
SubjectsWilliam--II,--German Emperor,--1859-1941. World War, 1914-1918--Moral & ethical aspects. Devil--1910-1920.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,642 × 3,727 px · prints to 15 × 12 in at 300 dpi
Reference695_Times_are_hard_your_Maj_1918

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