Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures: 1913-1919
In a hurry? Save or print these Collection Connections as a single file.
Go directly to the collection, Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.
Historical Analysis and Interpretation: Identifying Propaganda Techniques
According to the Newspaper Pictorials’ special feature on propaganda:
U.S. newspaper coverage of World War I (1914-1918) provides a unique perspective on wartime propaganda. The scope of articles and images clearly exhibits America’s evolution from firm isolationism in 1914 to staunch interventionism by 1918. Once American soldiers joined the war, public opinion at home changed. And newspapers helped change it. . . .
From “Covering the War: American Propaganda in the Pictorial Sections.”
The essay goes on to describe several ways in which coverage of the war in Europe changed as the United States grew closer to intervention and uses headlines to illustrate three propaganda techniques used by the newspapers: “the insistence of patriotic duty; the criticism of pacifism; and the fault, inferiority, and heartlessness of the Germans.”
Read the entire essay on how coverage of the war in Europe changed as the United States grew closer to intervention and then entered the war. Then look for evidence in the collection that the papers were doing the following:
- Encouraging Americans to take up their patriotic duty, whether in the military or on the home front. Look for the use of symbols of the United States and the other Allies, as well as pictures that present Allied forces in a heroic light.
- Presenting Germans as inferior, heartless, and responsible for the war. Look for photographs of the devastation of the war and consider how the captions or other text portray the Germans.
How might your findings be relevant in today’s world? Do you think the news media should engage in propaganda? Why or why not? Do you think the news media today do engage in propaganda? Find evidence to support your answer.
Historical Analysis and Interpretation: Considering Multiple Perspectives on the Peace of Versailles
Different people experience and view events differently. Nowhere could this be clearer than in war—a victory for one group of people is a defeat for another. At the end of World War I, Americans celebrated the Armistice, but Germans would soon be protesting the peace treaty that followed.
The engraving shown below originally appeared in a French newspaper. It shows a delegation to the Versailles conference listening to a speech by French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau. Look carefully at the painting. What can you discern from the expressions on the delegates’ faces and their body language? What country do you think this delegation represents? (Go to the collection to see if your answer is correct.) From your knowledge of the peace negotiations, how accurately do you think this drawing reflects the mood of the delegation it purports to represent? Explain your answer.
Near the end of the War of the Nations is a collage of U.S. newspaper headlines announcing the signing of the peace treaty. Examine these headlines. Use what you know about the Germans’ attitudes toward the peace treaty to write several headlines that might have appeared in German newspapers to mark this event.
You can examine multiple perspectives on other historic events, including D-Day, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by comparing headlines from around the world at the website of the Newseum.