4 Minute Men: A Message from Washington

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This wartime poster places a colonial-era town crier in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, deliberately linking the Revolution to the appeal of 1917. The Four Minute Men were volunteer speakers organized by the Committee on Public Information, which George Creel directed. They gave brief talks on the war effort in movie theaters and other public gatherings across the country. The lithograph, credited to H. Devit Welsh and dated around 1917, uses the old civic voice of the town crier to ask Americans to listen and to back the national cause. Its color and composition show how wartime propaganda drew on familiar national symbols to make a new demand feel traditional.

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