Poster, 'Save the babies'

The wealth of the nation

This First World War poster was created by the Child Welfare Department of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, an advisory committee to coordinate women's war efforts in the United States. The poster encourages the support of child welfare in wartime. The poster depicts a baby in scales weighed up against money. The accompanying text defines babies as 'the wealth of the nation' and advocates protection and support for infants and children on this basis. The illustration is by Helen Hyde (1868-1919), an American artist who specialised in print-making, and whose images of children were well regarded.

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.