Saturday 7 November 2009

Evaluating this piece of advertisement created and distributed in the 1900’s by Savile Lumley expresses to me the importance of joining the army at this time and it was typically aimed at men/fathers of the middle / upper class families. I have made this assumption due to my previous knowledge of how the army recruitment's took place the working class were obviously not as well off as the middle and upper class people of the society at that time and therefore would have most likely already enrolled to go fight for there country, as they would possibly been offered a much larger wage than they would currently be on therefore had nothing to loose. The advert is clearly war propaganda it is simple and effective. The gentleman in the image is looking directly into the viewers eyes this is to get across the importance and the feeling like is more personal he is talking to YOU. They are trying to get across the feeling of guilt if you do not enroll and if you do it is something which you should be proud of and want to do fighting for your country is courageous. This isn’t a poster which would have been released on its own there are a series of them which would be campaigning to the public, these got released just before the the forced subscription for the army there was a major crisis due to the amount of numbers dropping to want to join the forces. The details in the image are very direct yet subtle in the way they are used for example the soldiers which the boy is playing with are glamorized to look more appealing they don’t look like soldiers of war more like guards which wouldn't be the case. Adding to this point the whole idea that the child wants to play with them he sees them as his idles people to look up to soldiers of war encouraging fathers to want to enroll so there children look up to them. The curtains contain a red rose which symbolizes England. The arm chair has fleur de le printed on it symbolizing the queens property. The question which is being proposed to the audience is “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?.” I took from this that they are trying to glamorize the war by calling it Great its going to be the biggest war yet therefore you should want to get yourself involved, yet this is only an assumption that it will be called this and more importantly that Britain will be victorious.
The second image which i have looked at here is from “ The Uncle Sam Range” this was distributed in (1876) By Schumacher & Ettlinger, New York. This advertisement has many differences to the Savile Lumley piece it isn’t as direct yet they are both Propaganda yet this one is American and the other British. This image is aimed more at the lower middle class men I say men because of the head of this family is a man dressed in similiar outfit to uncle sam the black slave and the women are feeding him making this apparent. They are trying to sell this idea of the dream lifestyle they are actually advertising the cooker which isn’t very apparent at first, there are key details contained in this very hectic image which you must pick up on to understand the full impact. Such things like the receipt showing the “Bill Of Fayre” there are many countries and what they assume they would want to eat Ireland are being assumed to just want to eat potatoes also this idea of America paying the bill for all these countries to eat. The subtleties of the image suggesting its American propaganda America trying to save the world in the next 100 years (indicated by the clock) “feeding the world”. The image is a strong advertisement like the one above the eagle is patriotic to America and the decor of the room is over the top with American colours stripes and stars they clearly want to show they are dedicated to there nationality. Another way which they have showed this in the clock the year is 100 years since they claimed independence they can now stand alone and are wealthy now they want to help other countries in difficulty. The children in the image are showing clothing with Dixie west meaning the south New England- East West- wild west children lesser than uncle Sam thats why they are in the background they are eating with him from as he has saved all these parts of America. The font is quite chunky at the bottom of the page Western type which is significant as this used to be the savage land then saved by the americans and now is formally known as “ The land of the free!”.

Friday 6 November 2009





Compare and contrast the two images in relation to the following-
a) The choice and organisation of font and style of illustration
b) The purpose and meaning of the image
c) The intended audience of the image
d) The social and historical context of the image, such as social values at the time