Save Your Cans Help Pass the Ammunition

Inscriptions

McClelland Barclay

Label

A woman’s arm, featuring polished fingernails and the pink sleeve of a dress, grasps a can of tomato soup. Beyond, a line of cans visibly transforms into a bullet belt and provides the ammunition for a machine gun. This poster asks its female viewer to position herself not as one of the servicemen on the battlefield, but as an extension of this disembodied arm; that is, as a civilian who provides resources for the battlefield in the same way she was expected to provide sustenance for the home.

From the 2023 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 110, Constructing the Ideal Soldier, curated by Nathan Savo '24, Class of 1954 Intern

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 110, Constructing the Ideal Soldier, Nathan Savo, Class of 2024, Curator, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 7 January - 26 February 2023

On All Fronts: Posters from the World Wars in the Dartmouth Collection, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 30-July 4, 1999.

Publication History

Diane Miliotes, Nermina Zildzo, War Posters, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1999, listed p.6.

Provenance

Acquired by Willis Stetson Fitch (1896-1978), date unknown; given to Special Collections, Baker Library, Dartmouth College, date unknown; transferred to present collection, 1987.

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