Poster, 'She helps her Boy to Save Ships'

Helping the boys

This First World War poster was created by the British Ministry of Food and League of National Safety to encourage Britons on the home front to keep to the rations so that food resources were conserved for the British navy. The poster features a photographic image of a woman measuring out flour, superimposed against an image of a sailor resting onboard beside his gun.

Due to the poster's date range, it was likely associated with the League's S.O.S. or 'Save or Starve' campaign which ran from 31 December 1917 until 5 January 1918. Rationing was initiated in response to a successful German U-boat campaign in 1917, where unrestricted submarine warfare sunk many merchant ships importing food to Britain.

British and American Posters in New Zealand

This flier is part of a collection of First World War posters and fliers sent to New Zealand as examples of British 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.

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.