These are a few of my favorite wartime posters, urging Americans to be consious about their consumption. Although the messages were timely, I find them to be timeless as well.
In 1917, Charles Pack organized the National War Garden Commission and launched the war garden campaign. During WWI food production had fallen dramatically, especially in Europe, where agricultural labor had been recruited into military service and remaining farms devastated by the conflict.
World War I and II put a strain on the American food system, so the government strongly advocated growing your own. The movement also helped empower the masses, and bring the efforts into the home of all Americans.
Amid regular rationing of canned food in Britain, a poster campaign ("Plant more in '44!") encouraged the planting of victory gardens by nearly 20 million Americans. These gardens produced up to 40 percent of all the vegetable produce being consumed nationally.
Since the turn of the century there has existed a growing interest in victory gardens. A grassroots campaign promoting such gardens has recently sprung up in the form of new victory gardens in public spaces, victory garden websites and blogs, as well as petitions to both renew a national campaign for the victory garden and to encourage the re-establishment of a victory garden on the White House lawn. In 2009, Michelle Obama planted an 1,100 sq. foot "Kitchen Garden" on the White House lawn, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt's, to raise awareness about healthy food...bless her heart!
