America Calls, Enlist in the Navy

The popular American illustrator J. C. Leyendecker rendered a reassuring Lady Liberty shaking hands with a sailor in this recruitment poster for the US Navy. Born in Germany, Leyendecker moved to Chicago with his family in 1882, and trained at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Académie Julian in Paris. Upon his return to America he lived in New York and began his long association with the Saturday Evening Post, for which he made over 300 cover designs. Leyendecker became a poster artist as well, designing advertising posters for magazines and for commercial companies such as Arrow Collars, and posters for the US government during World War I. His colleague, the illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, led the American government’s Division of Pictorial Publicity, which directed poster production for the war.