Group 3

Art as History

We can learn a great deal about historical events and trends by examining artistic
expressions of the era. In 1940-1941, Jacob Lawrence, an influential African-
American Artist, did a collection of small paintings that is now known as “The
Migration Series”. These paintings were 60 small pictures in tempera (A type of
watercolor made with eggs as a binding agent) on hardboard panels. Lawrence
painted the 60 pictures not one at a time but production-line style, working on them
all simultaneously. The artist also provided captions to explain how each painting
relates to the overarching story of The Great Migration.

Your task is to examine “The Migration Series” painting in your packet and decide
as a group how the painting relates to the other documents. Your group has 20
minutes to examine the documents and painting. You will need to come up with a
3-5 minute presentation that teaches the class what you have learned about how the
painting that you have been assigned relates to the other documents in your packet.
When you are giving your presentations, a PowerPoint will be on the overhead
projector that includes your assigned painting and documents to show the class
each of your sources.

Be creative!
 Panel 11

“In many places, because of the war, food had doubled in price.”
 Posters from the Food Administration during World War I

Under Hoover's direction, the Food Administration, in league with the Council of Defense, urged
all homeowners to sign pledge cards that testified to their efforts to conserve food. The
government boards issued the appeal on a Friday.

By the following week, Americans had embraced wheatless Mondays, meatless Tuesdays,
porkless Saturdays. According to a sesquicentennial article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in
Wisconsin's Green Lake County 100 percent of the housewives signed on and 80 percent of
Milwaukee did. Schoolchildren joined housewives in supporting the effort by signing this
pledge: "At table I'll not leave a scrap of food upon my plate. And I'll not eat between meals but
for supper time I'll wait."

Americans planted victory gardens and prized leftovers. Even President Wilson cooperated,
grazing sheep on the White House lawns. The emphasis on voluntary support worked.

To achieve the results, the Food Administration combined an emphasis on patriotism with the
lure of advertising created by its own Advertising Section. This section produced a wealth of
posters for both outdoor and indoor display.

An executive order of August 21, 1920, terminated the remaining branches of the U.S. Food
Administration.
 Food and the War Effort

John J. Pershing was the Military Commander in charge of all American military during World
War I. Pershing is the only person to be promoted in his own lifetime to the highest rank ever
held in the United States Army, General of the Armies. The following letter shows how much
the top American Military Commanders were thinking about food’s impact on the war effort.

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October 16, 1918. Honorable CARL VROOMAN, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture:

DEAR MR. VROOMAN: Will you please convey to farmers of America our profound
appreciation of their patriotic services to the country and to the allied armies in the field. They
have furnished their full quota of fighting men; they have bought largely of Liberty Bonds; and
they have increased their production of food crops both last year and this by over a thousand
million bushels above normal production. Food is of vital military necessity for us and for our
Allies, and from the day of our entry into the war America's armies of food producers have
rendered invaluable service to the Allied cause by supporting the soldiers at the front through
their devoted and splendidly successful work in the fields and furrows at home.

Very sincerely,

JOH AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES,

Office of the Commander-in-Chief, France,

John J. PERSHING

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This tribute to the men and women on the farms of America from the head of the American
forces in France is fit recognition of the important part played by American food producers in the
war. It was early recognized by all the belligerent powers that final victory was a question of
national morale and national endurance. Morale could not be maintained without food. The bread
lines in Petrograd gave birth to the revolution, and Russian famine was the mother of Russian
terrorism. German men and women, starved of fats and sweets, deteriorated' so rapidly that the
crime ratio both in towns and country districts mounted appallingly. Conditions in Austria-
Hungary were even worse. Acute distress arising from threatening famine was very largely
instrumental in driving Bulgaria out of the war.