![]() ![]() In the spring of 1917, Flagg's image reappeared, this time on a U.S. The picture ran on the cover of the July 16, 1916, issue of Leslie's under the heading "What Are You Doing for Preparedness?" Within a year, despite President Woodrow Wilson's stated intention to keep America out of the war, the nation began mobilizing young men into the ranks. ![]() ![]() With that, Uncle Sam appeared, just in time for America's first world war. That image featured Lord Kitchener, Britain's secretary of war and chief of its military recruitment, pointing at the viewer, with the words "Your Country Needs YOU." Flagg erased the caption, borrowed Kitchener's pose, and substituted his own face for the Brit's-then added wrinkles, whiskers, and gray hair, just for good measure. In all likelihood, he also had a British military recruiting poster designed by Alfred Leete in 1914. He had his own reflection-tall and lanky, with piercing blue eyes and wavy hair. In the upcoming issue of the magazine, editors planned to urge Americans to expand the country's military force, in case world events dragged them into the ongoing tragedy that Americans at that point still referred to as the European War.įlagg was under a tight deadline and short on ideas he didn't even have a model in his studio to work with. One of the nation's most successful illustrators, the thirty-nine year-old Flagg was working on a cover drawing for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Newspaper. Sitting in his Manhattan studio on a summer day in 1916, James Montgomery Flagg took off his glasses, looked in the mirror, and saw there the image ofĪmerica itself. ![]()
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