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
Only the Navy Can Stop This
William Allen Rogers (1854-1931) · U.S. Navy recruiting, U.S. Navy Publicity Bureau, 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 of a William Allen Rogers cartoon, printed by the U.S. Navy Publicity Bureau in New York in 1917 with thanks to the New York Herald, 64 by 49 cm, from the Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection.
Why it matters
Navy recruiting borrowed the cartoonist's enemy, a German drawn as a pirate, and sold the service as the answer to him. Rogers was an American political cartoonist, and the Atlas hangs this sheet as the history of that image.
What to notice
A florid German soldier in a pirate's skull and crossbones brandishes a bloody sword as he wades in a tide of women's and children's bodies.
A sea of victims, and one navy against it.
Provenance
- School
- The Great War Poster (United States and the world)
- Designer
- William Allen Rogers (1854-1931)
- Printer / house
- U.S. Navy Publicity Bureau, New York
- Campaign
- Enlist · Remember Belgium
- Service
- Navy
- Format
- Political poster
- Poster published
- U.S. Navy recruiting, U.S. Navy Publicity Bureau, 1917
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · LCCN 2001700444 · POS - WWI - US, no. 403 (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 ↗