Opening The Atlas
The next picture is on its way.
Prepared from the source scan: surroundings removed and the sheet levelled where required. The source record remains available below.
The Posters That Went to War · Over There
Can You Drive a Car? Will You Drive One in France?
Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944) · American Field Service, 40 State Street, Boston, 1917
Format
Archival pigment giclée on museum-grade matte art paper, color-managed to the source scan — the flat inks and stone grain intact. The 40×60 is the room-changer.
Size
$39.00
What it is
A colour lithograph Charles Dana Gibson drew for the American Field Service of 40 State Street, Boston, in 1917, 56.3 by 35.4 cm on the sheet, from the Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection at the Library of Congress.
Why it matters
Young Americans in Paris founded the American Field Service after the war began. Some 2,500 volunteer ambulance drivers served with the French armies in every major battle and carried more than 500,000 wounded, with munitions and supplies besides.
What to notice
Columbia, robed in the American flag, holds off a skeletal Death with one arm and shelters a wounded soldier with the other, under three questions set in a row.
A driver's licence, asked for as a kind of courage.
Provenance
- School
- The Great War Poster (United States and the world)
- Designer
- Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944)
- Campaign
- Enlist · Relief and Welfare · Uncle Sam and Columbia
- Format
- Political poster
- Poster published
- American Field Service, 40 State Street, Boston, 1917
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · LCCN 2001698259 · POS - WWI - US, no. 330 (C size) [P&P]
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-11-02. Commons licence re-read 2026-11-02 on the Commons mirror of the same LoC scan: Public domain (PD-1923, PD-Layout, PD-US-expired).
More from the Atlas
Painted Whiskers, our sister studio, will paint your pet in this school’s hand, after Help! The Woman's Land Army of America, New Jersey Division. See Yours Painted ↗