Archives Search

Posters and original designs for posters issued during the First World War by the Canadian government, as well as by the governments of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Russia, Italy, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, Germany, Austria, and other countries. The vast majority of the posters are propaganda or Victory Loan campaign posters, but there are smaller numbers of recruiting posters, mostly, in the case of Canada, non-visual placard type posters, as well as many food conservation posters.

This miscellaneous body of records has been assigned a single retrospective accession number, 1983-28, although it may be from a variety of sources The collection was used in the early part of World War II as part of an active propaganda campaign to encourage recruitment and to raise funds for Victory Bonds See the Division of Prints and Drawings Memoranda Book 1927-1945 for notes on this use.

Many of the works have been photographed in both black and white and some in colour, but not all catalogue cards are available or accessible. There are black binders with 8 x 10 photographs available in the Reference Section

While he was he Britain and Europe in 1916 on archives business, Dr. Arthur Doughty, Dominion Archivist, received gifts of war trophies and other documentation from the British and French governments These formed the basis of the large Canadian collection which was augmented by Doughty's own collecting on behalf of the Canadian government and that of the Canadian War Records Office It is presumed that the posters which form this accession were acquired primarily through this same process, whether from friendly allied governments, or through both public and private sources

Arrangement note

By country .