Item #19964 Starvation Stares Us in the Face on Account of the Red War. WORLD WAR I., AGRICULTURE.

Starvation Stares Us in the Face on Account of the Red War

Broadside, 8 x 11.5 inches, on tanned newsprint. No publication information given, but 1917. Old folding creases, bottom two inches a bit rumpled, two small repairs to the verso; very good.

On April 15, 1917 -- two weeks after the United States officially entered the Great War -- President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation urging all Americans to do their part to increase production of the many things necessary to support the war effort, among them: "abundant materials out of our fields and our mines and our factories with which not only to clothe and equip our own forces on land and sea, but also ... to help clothe and equip the armies with which we are cooperating in Europe." He singled out Southern farmers, urging them to put patriotism before profit and grow food crops instead of the more lucrative cotton. "The variety of their crops," he concluded, "will be the visible measure of their comprehension of their national duty." Following Wilson's directive, this apparently unrecorded broadside invites the public to a mass meeting where speakers from the State College of Agriculture and the U.S.D.A. will "assist in organizing the community" to combat a world food shortage. We have been unable to determine with certainty which state this is from, but believe it to be either North Carolina or Georgia (the two southern states that had a State College of Agriculture at the time).

Item #19964

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