Books and Manuscripts

N(ew).Y(ork).: American Lithographic Co., (ca. 1918). Original color lithographic poster. 30 x 20 in. (762 x 508 mm). Scattered creasing, small short closed tears along right edge and at top left corner.

A scarce recruitment poster made to enlist "Soldiers of the Soil" for the The United States School Garden Army (USSGA).

The USSGA was established in 1917, during World War I, by the United States Bureau of Education (predecessor of the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services). Funded by the War Department, the USSGA endeavored to teach and encourage gardening among school children in the United States in an effort to stave off potential food shortages during and after the war. President Woodrow Wilson's administration hoped that the USSGA would make America's food system more secure by making it more sustainable and locally-oriented. By the war's end millions of children between the ages of 9-15 had enlisted and hundreds of "Victory Gardens" were planted.