Poster, 'Feed a Fighter'

 Saving food, saving lives

This First World War poster was created by the United States Government Food Administration to advocate for conservation of food resources for overseas allies. It depicts an image of a soldier seated in a trench, holding a mug and staring out at the viewer, reminding the home front of the wartime necessity of rationing.

New York City to the European battlefront

The poster's artist, Wallace Morgan, was born and raised in New York City, where his father was an art instructor. Morgan spent six years attending art classes at the national academy before working as staff artist for several New York newspapers during his twenties. When the United States joined the war in 1917, he served in the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) as an official artist. He worked alongside Charles Dana Gibson, Jack Sheridan and C.B. Falls to record battles, generals and the day-to-day routine of troops.

British and American Posters in New Zealand

This item is part of a collection of First World War posters sent to New Zealand as examples of British and American wartime propaganda. From 1917-1919, the Dominion Museum (now Te Papa) collected such war material with the help of the New Zealand High Commissioner in London and the Department of Defence. This particular poster arrived with the second batch of posters of over one hundred British and American war posters, sent by the High Commissioner in London via the Department of Internal Affairs in June 1919 and New Zealand War Records Section in London (Department of Defence).

The museum intended to collect and display such objects in a planned national war museum in Wellington which never eventuated. Instead, the museum toured over 100 war posters around New Zealand in the early 1920s in the context of increasing commemoration of the war during peacetime. For many, the posters illustrated important aspects of the war and the history of New Zealand's part in the war. This commemorative function was far removed from their original function to encourage wartime contribution.