In this I shall be comparing The Uncle Sam Range (1876) and
Daddy, What did you do in the Great War? (1915) by Savile Lumley.
In the Uncle Sam piece, what will initially strike you is
its frank, unabashed patriotism. The floors, walls and curtains are the stars
and stripes that make up the American flag, all of which are done in the bold
red, white and blue to match. This flag theme even continues into the outfits
of the parents in the room, one of them being Uncle Sam himself and the other
is what must be his wife. Judging from the way that the wife is just in the
background serving food while the father figure, Uncle Sam, is in the centre,
foreground surrounded by his children and dinner guest suggests that the
advertisement is designed with men in mind. It basically says to the viewer,
with this cooker you had everything, the subservient wife, the adoring
children, important dinner guests and even a slave to actually do all the
cooking. It says that with this cooker you will be the undisputable ruler of
your household and you will be truly American. Even the children sat at the
dinner table are a representation of America as being best. The children are
labelled Dixie, the west and England, while the dinner guest is the whole
world, with a long list of dishes that are supposedly what people from all over
the world eat. For example under the heading Ireland it says potatoes and has
various ways that the Irish would eat them, including raw. The patriotism in
this ad goes on to show that it has been a hundred years since the American
Revolution and gives off the impression that it is almost your civic duty to
buy their oven.
While the patriotism in the British piece is shown less
obviously, with just the red roses on the curtains, the royal symbol on the
armchair and the royal guard toys, the message of the poster is just as strong
if not stronger. The most important information about this piece is that it was
pre conscription and with that in mind it also gives off an impression of civic
duty. However what it uses more than a feeling of civic duty is a feeling of
guilt, emasculation and potential regret. It tells a story of a glorious
victory which is put into children’s history books and will allow veterans to
entertain and amaze their children with feats of bravery. The stare of the
father indicates how those who miss out on this opportunity to be a part of
history, will forever regret it and eventually when they have this otherwise
idyllic life, achieved by said Great War, their children will lose respect for them,
when they could so easily have done something to make their future children
proud.
While both rely on patriotism, to make their point and to
convince people that it’s what they wanted all along, they go about it very
differently, The war poster uses a much more subtle idea of patriotism to
convey its message while the American one states that you can’t be truly
American without their cooker.
