If you can use tools you are wanted / MacKinnon. – Historic Print
![If you can use tools you are wanted / MacKinnon., [1917] — vintage poster](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/87/87e56653ab06-L.webp)
(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
This vintage poster of If you can use tools you are wanted / MacKinnon. brings a moment of history to your wall. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
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If you can use tools you are wanted / MacKinnon.
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The poster's central appeal is to skilled tradesmen: a worker with his tools is pictured as the person the nation most needs, and the caption spells out why. Armies, munitions and supplies, it argues, are useless without ships to carry them, so the shipyards become a front line of their own. Issued during the First World War, when the United States was building merchant vessels at a rapid pace to replace losses at sea, the image asks men to offer their services directly at the nearest yard. Its promise that such work would make the world safe for democracy echoes the language President Woodrow Wilson used to justify American entry into the war.
| Created / published | [1917] |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print (poster) : chromolithograph ; 105 x 71 cm. |
| Genre | War posters American 1910-1920.Chromolithographs Color 1910-1920. |
| Notes | Caption: Your country needs ships and men to build them. Armies, munitions, and supplies are useless in this war without ships to transport them. Go to the nearest shipyard and offer your services. You can thus help to win the war and make the world safe for democracy. |
| Subjects | World War, 1914-1918--Economic & industrial aspects--United States. War work--1910-1920. Boat & ship industry--1910-1920. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 3,680 × 4,603 px · prints to 12 × 15 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | 321_If_you_can_use_tools_yo_1917 |
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