Keep Calm and Carry On: The Brief History of a Meme

I was shocked to learn that in WWII, Britain had an actual government department called "The Ministry of Information." It was their job to censor the news and generate "home publicity" and "overseas publicity". Creepy, isn't it?

Keep Calm and Carry On

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"Keep Calm and Carry On" is the most famous of the posters put out by the Ministry of Information.  Today, it's ubiquitous, having spawned all sorts of parodies:

Keep Calm - Parody

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During the war, "Keep Calm and Carry On" was not the Ministry of Information's best-known poster.  The most famous, and earliest, Ministry of Information poster was "Your courage, Cheerfulness, and Fortitude Will Bring Victory".   It also featured the crown.

Your Courage

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After the war, most of the Ministry of Information's posters were destroyed.  An original copy of "Keep Calm and Carry On" was discovered in a used book store in the early 2000's.  It became an instant hit.  

HG Wells Writes About the Great War and What To Do Next

I love the internet.

I just read HG Wells account of his "Tour of the Trenches" in 1916.  It's free to read online at Project Gutenberg.  Wells, of course, is known for being one of the first science fiction authors ever.  He was also a pacifist, but one who believed that the Great War must be fought to ... well, make the world safe for pacifism.

His thoughts on how to achieve a lasting, post-national peace are a fascinating read.  He got some parts right.  For instance, he wrote that ..."the few great industrial states capable of producing modern war equipment should take over and control completely the manufacture of all munitions of war in the world [and] ... they should absolutely close the supply of such material to all the other states in the world."  An effort was made toward this, eventually, with the United Nations Security Council's permanent membership being those nations who had nuclear weapons.

He also got some parts wrong.  He thought that this safeguarding of munitions manufacturing would be easy to accomplish.  He also thought that there could be a lasting, post-national peace.  Oh well.

The Time Machine the Time Traveller Arrives

Frank R. Paul

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Nurse Edith Cavell, the Maiden Martyr of Belgium, 1914

I've been looking at a lot of British WWI propaganda lately, and it's impossible to look at British WWI propaganda -- or any Allied WWI propaganda -- without coming across several references to Nurse Edith Cavell.

Cavell Postcard

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In 1914, Cavell had been working as a nurse and nursing instructor in Brussels, and had begun a professional French-language journal there.  When Belgium was invaded, she began to shelter Allied soldiers in contravention of German marital law.  In 1915, she was captured, tried and executed for treason by a German tribunal.

The execution of a woman and a nurse proved to be excellent fodder for the Allied propaganda machine.  Cavell was portrayed as an innocent, virginal young martyr.

Edith Cavell the Parody of Justice at the Court of German Kultur
T. Corbell

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Miss Cavell was actually 49 at the time of her death. She knew that her actions were illegal under the German occupation of Belgium, and she made no attempt to deny her activities. Britain, the United States, and Spain all worked to free her, to no avail. Her death became a rallying cry for recruitment in the UK, and helped to turn public opinion in the US against Germany.

Lord Kitchener Posters

I finished my article about Lord Kitchener.  In it, I tried to frame his life in terms of the images that made him famous.  I figure it was the pictures of him, recurring in the media along with his many exploits, that made him into the icon he was even before the famous "Wants YOU" posters of August 1914.

I admit that I had Kitchener wrong.  Of course, I knew the reality was a little more complicated, but I'd kind of conflated him with Stephen Fry's "General Melchett" character from Blackadder Goes Forth.  It turns out that Kitchener was one of the only people who could see that WWI would be a horrible long bloody slog, and could basically only be won by a war of attrition against Germany.

Kitchener and Others
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Original Caption: Kitchener, in charge of recruitment, tells Lloyd George and Asquith that things aren't as bad as they look ...

What the Future Once Looked Like

It's not exactly within the purview of this blog, but in honor of STS135 (aka, the final mission of Atlantis and of the shuttle program) I thought I'd take a detour into vintage science fiction images. It's a lot of fun to look at what people thought the space age would look like before they had ... well, any damn clue what the space age would look like:

Crew of a Space Rocket in Free Flight Outside Their Vehicle

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I love how there's no insulation on the space suits, and no radiation shielding on the suits or the helmets. Then there are the thrusters active on the manned maneuvering units, even though the astronauts appear to be floating at rest while holding onto tethers. Or whatever those things are.

Control Cabin of a Space Rocket

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And here, ladies and gentleman, we have the Control Cabin of an Actual Space Rocket!  It's called a "space rocket" because it's so spacious.  It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath unit with a combined live-work area that's perfect for the growing space family.  Just for comparison, here's an actual Apollo Command Module, with a crew area of 218 cubic feet:

Two Different Looks at Kitchener

Kitchener as a British Bulldog Guarding the Flag

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Kitchener of Khartoum, or K of K as he was called, portrayed as the British Bulldog, shown guarding the Union Jack. I find this image odd; I generally don't consider allowing a dog to stand on your nation's flag to be a sign of respect. I can only imagine that K of K had the prestige to carry it off.

Horatio, Lord Kitchener 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum Soldier; a French Caricature
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In his campaigns in the Boer Wars, Kitchener earned an reputation for brutality. He removed civilian support for Boer fighters by rounding up women, children, and the elderly and putting them in the first concentration camps, where the death rate was 34%. In Europe, and even in Britain, public opinion of this was Not Good. The French text at the bottom reads:

Je puis dire qu'a la guerre de la transvaal est termine.  Le pays est tranquille et j'y suis arrive en evitant toute effusion de sang.  Les camps de reconcentration ou je reuni les femmes et les enfants font rapidement leurs ouvres de pacification.

According to Google Translate:

I can say that in war the Transvaal is complete. The country is quiet and I achieved this while avoiding bloodshed. Concentration camps where I gathered the women and children are quick to pacify their works.

I'm not sure about "quick to pacify their works"; perhaps "were quick to pacify them" or "quickly subdued them" would be more accurate.  I can imagine the original French being a bit more bitter and biting.  If you know French and have any thoughts, please share in the comment section:

YOU Are The Man I Want! Lord Kitchener and WWI Propaganda in Britain

I'm writing an article over at Squidoo about Lord Kitchener.  It was spawned by seeing this poster:

Kitchener Poster Recruitment Poster Featuring Kitchener: "You are the Man I Want"


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I sort of snickered to myself. Kitchener was widely reputed to be gay, right? I could so easily imagine seeing this in the Pride parade. It started me thinking about what I knew and didn't know about Kitchener, so I started researching him, and decided he was interesting enough (and iconic enough) to write an article about him.

Getting back to vintage advertising and propaganda, I also started thinking about the meme where an iconic figure points directly at the viewer. Someone must have found it effective, because a few years after Kitchener tells us that WE are The Man He Wants, Uncle Sam did the same thing:

I Want You for the U.S. A... Buy From Art.com

In Western art, there's a complex relationship between the viewer's gaze and that of the subject. Models, who were from working class backgrounds, were paid to sit for a painter and almost never met the viewer's gaze. Portrait subjects, who were affluent enough to pay someone to record their likeness, gazed out of the painting and met the viewer's gaze directly.

But the interaction stopped there; they didn't point directly at the viewer. And of course, there was no text demanding that the viewer take a certain course of action. Was this a new, and therefore effective method of persuasion in the WWI era? Did anyone see this as offensive or peremptory, or were those sentiments swept away in a tide of jingoism? If a government today used such imagery, how would it be received -- as an ironic statement of nostalgia or big government overstepping its bounds?

If you have a thought, leave it in the comment section. Please keep the discussion limited to the use and effectiveness of propaganda -- don't want to get into partisan bickering here :)