American Junior Red Cross, Under One Flag for World Service (Poster)

The American Junior Red Cross began as an official organization during World War I as both a means to aid in the war effort and also to educate the youth of the nation. The organization prepared boxes of personal items to send overseas, planted and tended to gardens, from which the harvest would be purchased and used by food producers across the country, and held fundraisers. In fact, the Junior Red Cross raised over $3 million during WWI alone. Poster campaigns during both of the World Wars like those of the Red Cross show heroic, albeit everyday young people, coming together to do their fair share for the war effort. The research value of these works as forms of propaganda, illustration art, and American public health history is immense.