American Icons — Graphics of Patriotism & Dissent
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Table of Contents I: Uncle Sam II: Statue of Liberty III: American Flag IV: Bald Eagle V: Mount Rushmore VI: Rosenthal - Iwo Jima VII: Rosie the Riveter VIII. US Dollar
This exhibition focuses on traditional American icons from the 18th-20th centuries. Though it includes many conventional representations, most of the posters subvert the iconic figure in order to draw attention to contemporary issues. The more revered or well-known the symbol, be it Uncle Sam, the flag, Statue of Liberty, bald eagle, the dollar sign, Rosie the Riveter, Marines at Iwo Jima, or Mt. Rushmore, the more likely it is to be parodied, appropriated or altered. Diverse movements for social change, from immigrant rights to ecology and anti-war, often incorporate patriotic symbols into a visual language that ranges from the iconoclastic to overt protest. Although protest graphics have a long history, they literally exploded during the Viet Nam War, often turning conventional patriotic images into graphics critiquing U.S. government policies—a tradition that continues to this day. These posters were made to provoke thought and action. They take patriotic symbols off their pedestals and into the streets. They raise questions, challenge preconceptions and foster debate. Above all, they dispute the commonly held definition of patriotism as unconditional support for what our government says and does. Censorship and repression, so common in wartime, always result in the elimination of dissent, and violate the very principles on which this country was founded. In contrast, these posters forcefully and graphically demonstrate that citizenship includes the obligation to struggle for justice and that dissent is patriotic.
I. Uncle Sam
Uncle Sam has been personifying the U.S. government since the War of 1812. He replaced an early fictional character named Brother Jonathan, who had been used since the Revolutionary War of 1776. The depiction of Uncle Sam as a stern elderly man with white hair and a goatee, dressed in clothing that uses the design elements of the American flag, became common during the Civil War. The best-known and now iconic recruitment poster of Uncle Sam by James Montgomery Flagg, first appeared on the cover of a magazine in 1916. Flagg was an illustrator and portrait artist best known for commercial art. Although Flagg used a modified version of his own face for his Uncle Sam, he based the pose with its dramatic pointing finger, on a 1914 British recruitment poster featuring Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War. More than four million copies of Flagg’s I Want You poster were printed between 1917 and 1918. This poster was also used extensively during World War II, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, and is still used to recruit today.
1. I Want You For U.S. Army James Montgomery Flagg U.S. Government Printing Office Offset, First Printed 1917 1982 reproduction by: Haddad's Fine Arts, Inc. Oakland Museum History Department Anaheim, California 36132
2. I Want Out Larry Dunst and Steve Horn Committee to Help Unsell the War Offset, 1971 New York, New York 5858
3. End Bad Breath Seymour Chwast Famous Faces, Inc. Silkscreen, 1967 Norristown, Pennsylvania 5875
4. A Ritual Pentagon Exorcism Artist Unknown Offset, 1967 Place Unknown 4433 On Saturday, October 21, 1967, at least 100,000 gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to protest the Viet Nam War. After hours of speeches, roughly half crossed the Potomac toward the Pentagon. The protest assumed an intentionally absurd character early on: Abbie Hoffman, co-founder of the Yippies, promised to levitate the Pentagon into the air. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (depicted in the outer circle) led Tibetan chants in the hope of accomplishing exactly that feat, accompanied by The Fugs, a satirical rock group. The head of Tuli Kupferberg, co-founder of the Fugs, makes up the inner circle, surrounding the nuclear mushroom cloud and skull.
5. I Want Your Social Security Dollars For U.S. Military Richard Correll Silkscreen, circa 1980s Oakland, California 20631
6. Uncle George Wants You Stephen Kroninger Offset, 1991 Madison, Wisconsin 5563 Originally published by the artist and offered free to peace groups, the poster was then reprinted and distributed by the Progressive Magazine.
7. I Want You To Drive An SUV David Farnsworth Digital Print, 2002 San Francisco, California 18813
II. Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, was a gift to the United States from the people of France. Designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886, the robed female figure represents Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. She carries a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet. Although The Statue of Liberty was not conceived and sculpted as a symbol of immigration, it quickly became so as the colossal statue—a total of 305 feet high from ground level to the tip of her torch—greeted and inspired generations of arriving immigrants. Her role as unofficial greeter of incoming immigrants was solidified in 1903, by the inscription on the base of The New Colossus, a sonnet written in 1883 by Emma Lazarus: The New Colossus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
8. 85 Million Americans Hold War Bonds U.S. Government Printing Office Lithograph, 1945 Washington, D.C. 8470
9. Eat Tomi Ungerer Offset, 1967 New York 5859
10. Freedom to Breathe U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Offset, 1969 Washington, D.C. 17443 This U.S. Government produced poster reveals awareness about air pollution a year before the first Earth Day in 1970. Hand cut letters rendered in floral, psychedelic or other asymmetrical shapes, were part of a distinctive 1960s aesthetic. By the late 1960s, in order to attract the attention of youth, the government began appropriating this style for recruitment posters and public service announcements such as this one.
11. Declare Independence from Oil Rainforest Action Network Global Exchange Offset, circa 2006 Berkeley, California 34067
12. March for Justice and Freedom for All Immigrants and Refugees Roberto R. Pozos POZOS Graphic Design Offset, 1986 San Diego, California 9756
13. Ningun Ser Humano Es Ilegal American Friends Service Committee Offset, 2006 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 26316 The expression, No Human Being is Illegal, is attributed to Elie Wiesel, Romania Jew, survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, author of many books on the Holocaust and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. His complete statement is: You shall know that no one is illegal. It is a contradiction in itself. People can be beautiful or even more beautiful. They may be just or unjust. But illegal? How can someone be illegal?
14. Untitled FrĂŠmez Silkscreen, 1988 Havana, Cuba 8784
15. Arizona Liberty Roy Villalobos Offset, 2010 Chicago, Illinois 33361 Arizona Senate Bill 1070, also known as the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, is the broadest and strictest anti-immigration measure in decades. It has received national and international attention and has spurred considerable controversy. Critics of the legislation say it encourages racial profiling. There have been protests in opposition to the law in over 70 U.S. cities, including calls for boycotts of Arizona. The Act was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010, and scheduled to go into effect on July 29, 2010. Passage of the measure has prompted other states to consider adopting similar legislation. The day before the law was to take effect, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the law's most controversial provisions.
16. No Draft No War No Nukes Eric Ahlberg Silkscreen, 1980 Venice, California 3172 Congress abolished the military draft in 1973, near the end of the Viet Nam War, due to mounting protests and a general belief that the draft was unfair. Draft registration was reinstated by President Carter in 1980, as the U.S. was preparing to intervene in Afghanistan on the side of the Islamic fundamentalist warlords and mujahideen who were then fighting against the Soviet Union.
17. Do Nothing and Nuclear Testing will Eventually Come to an End Greenpeace Offset, circa 1996 United States 14536 This poster combines a reference to Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech with a sketch of the Goddess of Democracy, a 33 ft. statue created during the demonstrations. Using foam and papier-mâché over a metal armature, students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing built it in only four days. Although inspired by and resembling the Statue of Liberty, to have more closely modeled their statue on the U.S. icon would have been seen as "too openly proAmerican." The Tiananmen Square movement used mainly non-violent methods, but in early June 1989, PRC government troops and tanks fired into the square, killing between 400 and 3,000 civilians. The Goddess of Democracy was destroyed.
18. We Have a Dream Earl Newman Silkscreen, ca. 1990 Summit, Oregon 16160 The Tiananmen Square protests were a series of demonstrations beginning April 15, 1989 in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, People's Republic of China (PRC). Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the movement was generally against the government's authoritarianism, and voiced calls for economic change and democratic reform.
19. American Democracy Artist Unknown Offset, 1963 Moscow, Russia 35855 The Shameful Brand of American Democracy
20. Oh America Gee Vaucher Offset, circa 2005 London, United Kingdom 21570 First painted in 1989 as an album cover for the band Tackhead, the image was reworked 1998 to make the statement stronger. Vaucher considers this piece prophetic considering the history that followed on
21. No Police State Claude Moller San Francisco Print Collective Silkscreen, 2001 San Francisco, California 16975
Produced soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S.
22. Pieta John Emerson No RNC Poster Project; Offset, 2004 New York, New York 22702 Based on Michelangelo’s Pieta (1499), the spiked crown transforms the Virgin Mary into the Statue of Liberty, holding the corpse of a soldier draped in the U.S. flag. This poster was part of the NO RNC Poster Project, organized by artists to protest the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, and to oppose the Iraq and Afghanistan wars initiated by President George W. Bush. Over 50,000 posters in dozens of designs were distributed by the NO RNC Poster Project.
23. Statue of Liberty Leon Kuhn Digital Print, circa 2004 United Kingdom 34046 Kuhn’s photomontage replaces Lady Liberty with the photograph of the hooded man who was hooked up to wires, the most iconic of the many photographs of U.S. torture victims from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The Iraqis derisively call this photo "the Statue of Liberty,” echoing Kuhn’s version. The Abu Ghraib photos were made public in 2004, following a series of articles by journalist Seymour Hersh.
24. Statue of Limitations Guillermo Bert Silkscreen, 2009 Los Angeles, California 31769
25. Libertas John Carr Stencil, 2011 Los Angeles, California 36142 Produced in response to recent art censorship in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. In November 2010, Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Museum, removed a four minute video by New York artist David Wojnarowicz addressing the suffering of an AIDS victim. The video was part of the critically acclaimed Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture—the first major museum exhibition to focus on gay-themed portraiture in American art. House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (OH) and House Majority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (VA), threatened to cut the Smithsonian’s funding if the video were not removed. In December 2010, Jeffrey Deitch, MoCA’s new director, whitewashed a mural he commissioned by Blu, an internationally renowned Italian street artist. The mural was to be an important part of MoCA’s upcoming street art exhibition, Art in the Street. Blu’s powerful anti-war mural featured coffins draped in dollar bills. Admitting he had received no complaints, Deitch said he destroyed the mural as he thought it would offend veterans.
III. American Flag
The U.S. flag is one of the most widely recognized symbols in the world. The thirteen red and white horizontal stripes represent the original thirteen colonies that rebelled against the British monarchy in 1776, and became the first states in the Union. The fifty stars represent the 50 states. The origin of the design is inadequately documented, and although there is no evidence for the apocryphal story that Betsy Ross sewed the first flag from a from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington, the myth remains popular.
An upside-down flag is a distress signal, and burning a flag is an act of protest. Burning a flag is also the preferred method of destroying a flag in a dignified manner when it is no longer fit for use. Whether seen as a symbol of freedom and democracy, or as representing U.S. imperialism, few symbols evoke as strong emotions, both positive and negative.
26. We Will Never Forget Zero Crossing Offset, 2001 Los Angeles, California 17093 By draping the destroyed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the flag, it strongly evokes two coffins. Of the many posters produced immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., this is one of the most poignant and least jingoistic.
27. U.S.A. Surpasses All the Genocide Records! George Maciunas Offset, 1967 New York, New York 16960
Produced to protest the Viet Nam War, this is one of the best known works coming out of Fluxus, a progressive art form and philosophical attitude that developed in the early 1960s. In addition to Maciunas, other notable Fluxus artists and philosophers include Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, John Cage, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, Yoko Ono, and Nam June Paik.
28. [U.S. Flag with Teepees] Lex Drewinski Silkscreen, 1992 Berlin, Germany 14713
29. Resist the Draft! Earl Newman Silkscreen, circa 1970 Venice, California 28638
30. Pledge Allegiance Lou Dorfsman Ron Borowski Starfish Productions Offset, 1970 New York, New York 9176
31. Power to the People George Rafael Morante OrganizaciĂłn de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de Africa, Asia y AmĂŠrica Latina (OSPAAAL) Offset, 1971 Havana, Cuba 23179 George Jackson (1941-1971) was sentenced to "one year to life" in prison when he was eighteen, for stealing 70 dollars from a gas station. While incarcerated he became an activist, a Marxist, a member of the Black Panther Party, and an author. In 1971, he was shot to death by guards in San Quentin Prison, who claimed he was trying to escape. In 1988, trial testimony disclosed a setup by the police to silence Jackson, a revolutionary author and speaker.
32. You Can't Convert a Man Because You Have Silenced Him George Pennewell offset, 1971 San Francisco, California 10954 Bobby Seale is an African American activist who cofounded the Black Panther Party (BPP) with Huey P. Newton in 1966. He underwent extensive FBI surveillance as part of its Counter Intelligence Program, known as COINTELPRO. Seale was one of the original “Chicago Eight” defendants charged with conspiracy and inciting to riot, in the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. During the trial, one of Seale's many outbursts led Judge Julius Kaufman to have him bound and gagged, which is the subject of this poster. Although the evidence against him was slim, Seale was sentenced to four years in prison for contempt because of his outbursts and was eventually tried separately–and the “Chicago Eight” become the “Chicago Seven.” The jury was unable to reach a verdict in Seale's trial, the charges were eventually dropped and he was released from prison in 1972.
33. Attica Ernest Pignon Ernest Offset, 1974 Paris, France 880 On September 9, 1971, inmates at the Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, rioted. The underlying causes were overcrowding, poor food, inadequate medical care, rigid censorship and meager visiting rights. Four days after inmates seized control of an exercise yard and took guards as hostages, New York’s Republican governor, Nelson Rockefeller ordered state troopers to attack. 43 people died at Attica. Nearly all were killed—inmates and hostages alike—when state troopers stormed the prison and fired indiscriminately through a thick haze of tear gas. The assault took six-minutes. Subsequently the troopers and Attica guards lied about what had happened, and resorted to brutal reprisals, beating and torturing inmates. In January 2000, a federal judge in Rochester, NY awarded $8 million to inmates who were beaten and tortured, as well as $4 million for lawyers’ fees.
34. Justice Now! Reparations Now! James Kodani Little Tokyo Art Workshop Little Tokyo Peoples Rights Organization Silkscreen, 1981 Los Angeles, California 3084 In the spring of 1942, five months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, forcing approximately 112,000 persons of Japanese ancestry residing on the West Coast to leave their homes to enter internment camps in inland areas. Two-thirds of the interned were U.S. citizens by birth. The rest were born in Japan and forbidden by U.S. law from becoming citizens. Ten camps were opened in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. This poster emerged from an effort in the early 1980s to demand a formal apology and financial compensation from the U.S. government.
35. America Doesn't Need Scapegoats Miles Hamada Self-Help Graphics and Art Silkscreen, 1983 Los Angeles, California 3135
36. Ecology Now Earth First Silkscreen, 1970 Los Angeles, California 6399
37. Democracy "O" Offset, 2003 Venice, California 18430
38. Silence=Death Vote Silence=Death Project Offset, 1988 United States 6720 In 1987, six gay activists in New York formed the Silence = Death Project and began plastering posters around the city featuring a pink triangle on a black background stating simply ‘SILENCE = DEATH.’ In its manifesto, the Silence = Death Project drew parallels between the Nazi period and the AIDS crisis, declaring that ‘silence about the oppression and annihilation of gay people, then and now, must be broken as a matter of our survival.’ The slogan thus protested both taboos around discussion of safer sex and the unwillingness of some to resist societal injustice and governmental indifference. The six men who created the project later joined the protest group ACT UP and offered the logo to the group, with which it remains closely identified.
The pink triangle was established as a pro-gay symbol by activists in the U.S. during the 1970s. Its use originated in World War II, when known homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps were forced to wear inverted pink triangle badges as identifiers, much in the same manner that Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Wearers of the pink triangle were considered at the bottom of the camp social system and subjected to particularly severe maltreatment and degradation. The appropriation of the symbol of the pink triangle, usually turned upright rather than inverted, was thus a conscious attempt to transform a symbol of humiliation into one of solidarity and resistance. By the outset of the AIDS epidemic, it was well-entrenched as a symbol of gay pride and liberation.
39. No Blood For Oil Emek Gan Golan Silkscreen, 2004 Los Angeles, California 21614 This slogan became popular during the first Persian Gulf War that began in January 1991, and continues to be used to protest the ongoing U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya.
40. America: Dying For Business Committee for Full Enjoyment Silkscreen, 2001 San Francisco, California, 16977 In the months following the September 11, 2001 attacks, politicians from President Bush to San Francisco’s Mayor Willie Brown, promoted shopping as a patriotic act, and shopping bags emblazoned with the American flag appeared coast to coast, merging patriotism with consumerism.
41. America Cedomir Kostovic Digital Print, 2004 Springfield, Missouri 24430
42. 1976- What are We Celebrating? Amherst Cultural Workers Collective Offset, 1976 United States 3803
43. Benefit For The Freedom of Leonard Peltier Rolo Castillo Silkscreen, 1993 Los Angeles, California 9344 The upside-down flag is a symbol of distress, another form of SOS. Although produced to promote a concert, these posters were never given out because the distributor was offended by the image of the burning U.S. flag. This is one of the few surviving copies. The Native American in the photo is not Leonard Peltier. Leonard Peltier & The Wounded Knee Massacre The Wounded Knee Massacre was the last major battle between U.S. troops and Native Americans. It took place on December 29, 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek in the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, South Dakota. Among the 300 Sioux killed were many women and children. The soldiers later claimed that it was difficult to distinguish the Sioux women from the men. On February 28, 1973, members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the village of Wounded Knee and challenged federal authorities to repeat the massacre. After 72 days, three deaths—a member of AIM and two FBI agents— and the wounding of many Native Americans, they surrendered, having drawn attention to Sioux grievances. The murder of AIM member, Joe Stuntz Killsright, who was shot in the back at close range, remains unsolved, as are the deaths of over 60 AIM members murdered between 1972-1976. Four men were charged with the murder of the FBI agents at Wounded Knee, two were acquitted and charges against a third were dropped. Leonard Peltier, the fourth man accused, is still imprisoned. The Supreme Court has refused to review the case despite documents proving that the FBI faked evidence, perjured themselves in court and coerced witnesses to make false statements against Peltier. Amnesty International, more than 50 members of Congress and 60 members of the Canadian Parliament have been unsuccessful in their appeals for Peltier to receive a new trial.
44. God Bless America Handgun Control, Inc. Offset, circa 1997 Washington, D.C. 17424
45. Censorship Is UnAmerican Josh Gosfield Offset, 1990 New York, New York 6733 Commissioned by Virgin Records when an album by the rap group 2 Live Crew, was outlawed for obscenity in parts of Florida in June 1990. The poster promotes freedom of speech while showing the opposite—the white hand of the U.S. government covering the mouth of a young African American. When these posters were plastered around Los Angeles, graffiti artists sometimes replaced the word UN with VERY, so the poster read, "Censorship is Very American."
46. Untitled (Questions) Barbara Kruger Silkscreen, 2009 Los Angeles, California 31757
47. Freedom of Speech/USA Patriot Act Carolina Botero Digital Print, 2001-2007 Colombia 34320
IV. Bald Eagle
The eagle has been used as a symbol of power throughout history and around the world—it was used as a national emblem during the Roman Empire and Nazi Germany. The American Bald Eagle gained unofficial recognition as the national bird when the Great Seal of the United States was adopted on June 20, 1782. This followed a short but spirited debate where Benjamin Franklin proposed that the turkey, would far better suit the qualities of America, because, “The bald eagle...is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird and withal a true original native of America.” Almost two centuries later, and in marked contrast to Franklin, President John F. Kennedy stated, “The Founding Fathers made an appropriate choice when they selected the bald eagle as the emblem of the nation. The fierce beauty and proud independence of this great bird aptly symbolizes the strength and freedom of America.” The posters in this section illustrate both interpretations, and the eagle is depicted both as a symbol of liberty and as a bird of prey.
48. Victory--Now You Can Invest In It! Dean Cornwell U.S. Government Printing Office Lithograph, 1945 Washington, D.C. 36137
49. Birth of Our New Nation Graphix Motivation Offset, 1969 United States 22168
50. [Eagle Wearing American Flag Helmet] Earl Newman Silkscreen, 1967 Venice, California 16155
51. No! U.S. Out of Grenada Fireworks Graphics Silkscreen, circa 1984 Los Angeles, California, 23347
52. No To The Guantanamo Naval Base! Gladys Acosta Organización de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de Africa, Asia y América Latina (OSPAAAL) Offset, 1991 Havana, Cuba 18319
53. Panama: To Resist Is To Win Alberto Blanco Organización de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de Africa, Asia y América Latina (OSPAAAL) Offset, 1989 Cuba 6770
54. Stop USA Imperialismen Terpo Tryk Communist Party of Denmark (DKP) Offset, 1980s Denmark 32522 Stop USA Imperialism
V. Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore was originally known as Six Grandfathers, a mountain sacred to the Lakota Sioux in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. It was renamed during an 1885 prospecting expedition after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer. South Dakota historian Doane Robinson conceived the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people in order to promote tourism in the region. Republican President Calvin Coolidge insisted that along with Washington, two Republicans and one Democrat be portrayed. Congress authorized the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission in 1925. The 60 foot high sculptures of the heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, were sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, an active member of the white supremacist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, and his son Lincoln Borglum. Construction began in 1927 and ended in 1941 when funding ran out. As Six Grandfathers, the mountain was part of the route that Lakota leader Black Elk (1863-1950) took in a spiritual journey. Mount Rushmore is controversial among Native Americans on numerous levels. The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie had granted the Black Hills to the Lakota in perpetuity, but the U.S. seized the area from the Lakota after the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) led an occupation of the monument in 1971, naming it "Mount Crazy Horse." Crazy Horse was a famous Native American leader who took up arms to fight against the Federal government encroachments on the Lakota territories and way of life, including leading a war party at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876). The Crazy Horse Memorial is being constructed elsewhere in the Black Hills to commemorate him and as a response to Mount Rushmore. It is intended to be larger than Mount Rushmore.
55. Vandalism T. Ryan Red Corn Silkscreen, 2006 Pawhuska, Oklahoma 28776
56. Always Remember. Your fathers Never Sold This Land. Akwesasne Notes Offset, 1976 New York, New York 33845
VI. Rosenthal - Iwo Jima
Joe Rosenthal’s dramatic photograph of Marines raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, may be one of the most reproduced photos of all time. The fierce Battle for Iwo Jima, a small island 750 miles south of Tokyo, was the costliest battle of World War II. More than 6,800 U.S. servicemen died on Iwo Jima, including 5,931 Marines—a third of all Marines killed during the entire war. Of the five Marines and a Navy corpsman in the photograph, only three survived the battle. It was actually the second flag raising to take place on February 23, 1945. The Marine commander considered the initial flag to be too small to be seen from a distance, so a larger flag was used for the second shot, which was photographed by Rosenthal. It was the only photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in the same year as its publication, and came to be regarded as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war. It helped instill pride and hope in Americans yearning for an end to the war. Within months, the flagraising image had been engraved on a 3-cent stamp and emblazoned on 3.5 million posters and thousands of outdoor panels and car cards that helped sell more than $200 million in U.S. war bonds with the slogan, Now … All Together. So powerful is the Iwo Jima image that it echoes through time to other tragic events, including the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Among that terrible day's most memorable photos was one of three firefighters raising an American flag over the rubble. The photographer, Thomas E. Franklin of the Record newspaper in northern New Jersey, said that as soon as he took the photo, "I realized the similarity to the famous image of Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima—it had drama, spirit and courage in the face of disaster."
57. Now‌All Together C.C. Beall United States Department of the Treasury Lithograph, 1945 Washington, D.C. 7159
58. El Salvador Vencera!!! Comite Nicaraguense de Solidaridad con los Pueblos Offset, 1981 Managua, Nicaragua 22606 El Salvador Will Win!
59. Elkartasuna Elkartasunako Komite Offset, 1980s Basque [Spain] 32676 Solidarity The United States– Against Peace and Liberty of the People of the World. Stop Yankee Intervention. Basque Solidarity Committee The Basque nationalist movement advocates for a separate nation.
60. Victory Jadran Boban Digital Print, 2003 Croatia 34034
61. Kernkop Rot Op! Soldaten Tegen Kernwapens/Soldiers Against Nukes Offset, 1980 Utrecht, Netherlands 34065 Fuck the Warhead!
62. For All Time Specialty Imports Inc. Silkscreen, circa 1971 Memphis, Tennessee 5853
63. Stop the Draft Lee Whitten Silkscreen, 1980 Los Angeles, California 9322 The Exxon logo replaces the U.S. flag in this version of the iconic Joe Rosenthal photo, thus linking war with corporate interests, especially oil.
64. Veterans Observance We Remember Lesbian and Gay Veterans Organizations of the United States Offset, 1987 California 9766
65. Join the Challenge Energy Action Offset, circa 2005 Berkeley, California, 35857
VII. Rosie the Riveter
The original 1942 We Can Do It poster by J. Howard Miller (1918 – 2004), was one of a series of posters he painted for the Westinghouse Company. The posters were sponsored by the company's War Production Co-Ordinating Committee, one of the hundreds of labor-management committees organized under the supervision of the national War Production Board. It was inspired by a United Press International (UPI) photo of Geraldine Doyle, a 17 year-old factory worker from Michigan who died in 2010. She did not know that she was the model for this widely reproduced and frequently appropriated poster until reading about it in a magazine in 1984. We Can Do It was part of a national campaign to encourage women to get out of the house and into the factories while the men were fighting oversees. Conditions were sometimes harsh and pay was not always equal—the average man working in a wartime plant was paid $54.65 per week, while women were paid about $31.50. Nonetheless, women quickly responded to the call to fulfill their patriotic duty by entering the workforce. Good Housekeeping and other popular women’s magazines aided this effort by promoting meals that could be made quickly, after work. After the war, these same magazines printed recipes for more elaborate, multi-course meals, as part of the effort to get women out of the workforce so that the returning servicemen could have the jobs. This image became misidentified with Rosie the Riveter, a fictional figure representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II. Rosie the Riveter was featured in a widely recorded song written in 1942, and a 1943 Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell. During the 1970s women’s movement, the We Can Do It poster became a U.S. feminist icon, and continues to inspire variations and appropriations.
66. Si Se Puede! Syracuse Cultural Workers Offset, 2001 Syracuse, New York 17427 Yes We Can! A contemporary Spanish version of the now-iconic We Can Do It poster designed by J. Howard Miller during World War II. Although based on a photo of a factory worker named Geraldine Doyle, the original poster became identified with Rosie the Riveter, the title of a 1943 Norman Rockwell cover of the Saturday Evening Post, and a popular song. Si Se Puede! is the rallying cry for the United Farm Workers union.
67. Sorry Boys...I'm Gay! Artist Unknown Offset, circa 2008 United States 32533
68. I Can Do It Ricardo Levins Morales Northland Poster Collective Digital Print, 2008 Minneapolis, Minnesota 33700
69. 3a Marcha Lésbica Alma Lopez Global Fund for Women Offset, 2006 designed: Los Angeles, California printed: Mexico City, Mexico 33504 3rd Mexico City Lesbian March Lesbians, breaking barriers, crossing borders Women Only. No trucks. No propaganda from political parties Meeting and cultural event at the end Convened by individual women and: [list of sponsoring organizations] Cristina Serna, a Chicana from East Los Angeles and UC Santa Barbara graduate student, takes the pose of the classic We Can Do It! poster from World War II. Serna flexes her right fist and proudly shows off a tattoo of the Virgen de Guadalupe and La Sirena (mermaid) embracing each other as they float on a Viceroy butterfly surrounded by a Sacred Heart. The background is composed of multiple photographs taken during the previous two Mexico City Lesbian marches and demonstrations in the Zocalo, Mexico’s historic center. The butterflies symbolize the activists’ intention of scattering to diverse areas of Mexico, the U.S. and beyond, ignoring borders, and creating awareness and change.
70. Drill, Baby, Drill Artist Unknown Offset, 2008 Place Unknown 29978 Drill, Baby, Drill! was a popular Republican slogan during the 2008 presidential campaign, expressing support for increased drilling for petroleum as a source of additional energy. Although first said by former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, who was later elected Chairman of the Republican National Committee, the slogan gained prominence during the vice-presidential debate between Republican Sarah Palin [shown in poster] and Democrat Joe Biden. The slogan received renewed attention in 2010, following British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Following the spill, some proponents of Drill, Baby, Drill became embarrassed about their previous support and have tried to distance the Republican Party from the slogan. BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill continues to cause extensive environmental damages and economic losses estimated in the billions of dollars.
71. Recovery.gov "O" Offset, 2009 Los Angeles, California, 30020
VIII. US Dollar
The dollar is the official currency of the United States of America, and is also the currency used most in international transactions. The U.S. dollar is most commonly represented by the green bill itself, the $ symbol, one of the presidents used to depict different denominations, or the pyramid and the eye on the back of the one dollar bill. The examples in this exhibition use either the $ symbol or the image of George Washington on the front of the one dollar bill which is based on an unfinished portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796. The symbol $, usually written before the numerical amount, is also used for other currencies, but when used on political posters generally refers to the U.S. It is alternately written with one or two vertical lines through the S-shape. The origins of the symbol are not certain, though it is possible that it comes from a depiction of the Pillars of Hercules (two columns connected by an S-shaped ribbon) that were on the Spanish Coat of arms, as well as on the Spanish dollars minted throughout the New World. A fictional but common misinterpretation is that the dollar sign is comprised of the capital letters U and S typed one on top of the other. This theory, popularized by novelist Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, does not consider the fact that the symbol was already in use before the formation of the United States.
72. United We Stand Earl Newman Silkscreen, circa 2008 Summit, Oregon 30420
73. In God We Trust, In Oil We Lust BadDog Digital Print, 2007 United Kingdom 34322
74. Foreign Debt Rafael Enriquez Organización de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de Africa, Asia y América Latina (OSPAAAL) Offset, 1983 Cuba 23266 IMF (the abbreviation for the International Monetary Fund) is inscribed in the place traditionally reserved for INRI (the Latin abbreviation for Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews). Both INRI and IMF mock the suffering of the person being crucified. This poster directly relates the poverty in Latin America to the policies of the U.S.–controlled IMF, which imposes a lowered standard of living on a country in order for its government to qualify for loans. It is ironic that many people flee to the U.S. to escape the poverty that is often a consequence of IMF policies.
75. Money Lex Drewinski Silkscreen, 2001 Berlin, Germany 15875
76. La Deuxiéme Croisade Du Pétrole Est Commencée... Artist Unknown Offset, circa 2003 France 33424 The Second Crusade for Oil Has Begun…
American Icons – Graphics of Patriotism & Dissent is available as a traveling exhibition. For more information about bringing this exhibition to your institution, please contact us at admin@politicalgraphics.org or (310) 397-3100.