Leslie’s Illustrated, Feb. 1917
Helping Mother
Another Norman Rockwell cover. This one depicting a family lifestyle that was being changed dramatically by the inventions of the late 19th century and the early twentieth century. Electric lights, the typewriter, Macadam (paved streets), the bicycle, the automobile, and the airplane. The telephone, the sewing machine and vacuum cleaner and the washing machine, the radio and the moving picture machine. All things to make life easier and expand the horizons of the individual. All reducing the centralized family and family life.
Civilization?
Civilization was at a crossroads according the illustrator Sarka who created this cover. Could what was happening in Europe – all the killing and maiming be at all considered “civilized”? War was once a “gentleman’s” vocation, now it was being fought on a massive violence level. World War 1 is considered one of the first “modern” war. Modern war is defined as a war where more individuals died on the battlefield than other places. Was this war the war to end all civilization? Had man finally created a world so violent that it would destroy itself? Had man finally created inventions so sophisticated that it would destroy a world that had finally given man victory over nature? One hundred years later and with inventions which made those of 1917 seem primitive we are still asking ourselves the same question.
I Want You
The second of three Uncle Sam’s pictured on Leslie’s magazine covers in 1917 and 1918. The first illustration asked Americans if they were prepared for War. This second illustration which more directly copied the 1914 war poster that had Lord Chichester finger pointing at the reader with the caption below reading WE NEED YOU. The American cover was appropriated by the U.S. government as a war poster for both World War I and World War II.
Stay tune for the third illustrated cover done at the end of the year. It may surprise you.
On Guard
Naval Militiaman Protecting Brooklyn Bridge, Destruction of Which Would Block the Navy Yard
I had a history professor in college whose favorite quote was…. “history always repeats itself… just never twice the same way.! This cover depicts the truth in that statement. Here stands a soldier guarding the Brooklyn Bridge against “terrorism” in New York. The navy looked to by the linchpin of the American armed forces in World War I. Naval ships were needed to carry men, munitions, and food to the overseas troops. They were also called upon to protect the East Coast from an anticipated invasion by German ships.