Category — war gardens

From Toons At War.
1940’s image.

Disney licensee W.L. Stensgaard produced a Victory Garden sign that featured Donald Duck chasing pests from his garden. The sign was available in two sizes and was sold in five and dimes, hardware and grocery stores.

One version of the sign featured the illustration printed on a masonite board attached to a 24-inch long stake. This sign was produced in six oil colors and had a wholesale price of $10.80 per dozen. The suggested retail was $1.69 each.

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28 Minutes of classic radio humour by two of the greats.

Listen here:

Gracie: You were right George, we’ll just a have a sweet little Victory Garden.

George: Good. We’ll plant some asparagus.

Gracie: And we’ll plant some beets on top of it.

George: On top of it?

Gracie: Ah huh. So when the asparagus start to come up, they’ll tickle the beets on the bottom and they’ll come up sooner.

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Although there is no story to accompany this graphic in the 1941 edition of the comic, it is a wonderful promotional image, which would have reached millions of kids during the war. Superb!

Your car – like your Victory Garden – is a national asset these days. So care for it wisely! Spare it excessive wear with stem-to-stern Marfak chassis lubrication.

Larger image here.

WWI Home Garden Seed Advertising by Haskell Coffin 1919

Haskell Coffin (1878 – 1941) A versatile illustrator, gracing covers for several magazines, Redbook and The American being two long-term stints. Becoming famous as a portrayer of American beauty, the Coffin girl could be found on note cards, sheet music, calendars, decorative boxes, fashion catalogs. His “Joan of Arc Saved France” WWI poster is well known.

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National Emergency War Garden Commission. Sow The Seeds of Victory Posters in cigar store window. Circa 1914-1919.

Teaching With Documents: Sow the Seeds of Victory!
Posters from the Food Administration During World War I

Excerpt from the National Archives

“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. One proclaimed: “Food is Ammunition-Don’t waste it.” Another featured a woman clothed in stars and stripes reaching out to embrace the message: “Be Patriotic sign your country’s pledge to save the food.” A third combined patriotism with a modern healthy diet message. At the top, the poster encouraged readers to: “Eat more corn, oats and rye products-fish and poultry-fruits, vegetables and potatoes, baked, boiled and broiled foods.”

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Photographer Brown Bros. New York,

1918 Cabbages and Queens
Women wearing bloomers, working in a vegetable garden.

Farmerettes of 1918, 100 years after birth of Mrs. Bloomer. In the early Victorian era, the American, Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818-1894), caused quite a stir when she wrote an article for her feminist publication ‘The Lily’. She tried to promote the idea of women abandoning their petticoats for a bi-furcated garment later known as the bloomer fashion. She suggested that woman would find trousers, like those worn by Turkish women, easier to wear than their voluminous heavy skirts.

Of Course I Can!

Image originally created for 1944 wartime use; used here for post-war famine prevention. (Original poster was titled, “Of Course I Can!”.

Creator: Williams, Dick.
United States. Dept. of Agriculture.
United States. President’s Famine Emergency Committee.
Advertising Council

Title: Waste Not Want Not: Prepare For Winter

Artist: Henderson, E.
Publisher: Canada Food Board, Ottawa
World War I — Canada Food Board;

19th June 1942: Waitresses from the ‘Quality Inn’ restaurant in Regent Street, London, watering and gathering tomatoes that are growing in boxes on the pavement as part of the ‘Dig For Victory’ scheme. (Photo by Paget/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Let us farm our garden

Artiste: Louisette Jaeger, 14 ans
Ecole Communale de la Rue Camou
Editeur: Comité national de prévoyance et d’économies
Union française
Date: approx. 1915-1918 Paris
Notes: Affiche produite par une écolìère française.

Larger poster image here.

1943 Poster. Artist: Parker, Alfred, 1906-1985. United States. Office of War Information.

Antiquated canning makes a comeback

By Misty Harris
CanWest News Service
July 15, 2009

For a generation that made instant gratification its raison d’etre, the recent reclamation of canning – a domestic art that could be timed with a sundial – is nothing short of astounding.

Nielsen Canada reports this week that sales of canning accessories were up nearly 70 per cent in May over the same month last year, while June saw the category swell a whopping 88 per cent compared to the same period in 2008.

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Harris & Ewing Collection (Library of Congress) between 1910 and 1920
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Sheridan School War Gardens. Trespassers, Destroyers and Thieves. Beware $100. fine. One year imprisonment. Dogs are subject to the law. Keep them off.

“Dead Victory Garden”. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Lithograph by Kenneth Hartwell

George Kenneth Hartwell (1891-1949) was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He was a painter, illustrator and printmaker. He studied at the Art Studies League of New York under George Bellows, Edward Hooper and others. Hartwell was an American Realist who rose to prominence during the Depression.

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1943 National Dairy Products Corporation and affiliated companies

“The Earth and I are friends now”

Last year I never thought of the earth except as something to walk on. But in the spring I turned up the sod and planted seed. Summer – grubbing for weeds and watching things grow – I got friendly with the land.

Well, it’s autumn now. The crop wasn’t big – but fair enough. And something good has happened to our family! We’ve weeded and watered and hoped together. And said our table blessing over our own harvest.

It seems to me that my family has come back to some important things. Come back to one another – and to our good soil. Come back to being neighbors with the family whose garden row begins where ours leaves off.

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Slightly larger image here.
Advertisement from the Victory Garden era.

Harvest Time, 1943
America makes the best of everything!

Americans are making the best use of their week-ends and vacations by helping bring in the crops. And many are making the best use of Schenley Royal Reserve by saving it for special occasions. All the Schenley distilleries are producing vital alcohol for war purposes only.

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Mary Pickford posing with a group of employees during her visit to the General Engineering Company (Canada) munitions factory, June 5, 1943
Larger image here.

Let’s Visit (1945) – This clip talks about the Victory Gardens at the General Engineering plant, Scarborough.

To listen to this excerpt in “wav” format (538K) click here.

See more about wartime production and women in war work here.

Larger version here.

World War II poster promoting home gardens so that food can be sent to refugees freed from Axis regions. 1944.

World War One Food Garden Parade. circa 1914.

Produce from village war gardens on display. Opens with parade. Man leading horse pulling a wagon of produce and Union Jack stuck on front. Boy Scouts walk behind the wagon carrying gardening tools and flags. Then a local marching band. This procession comes marching into town square; as other people watch. Lots of lettuces; other vegetables piled high on truck; pan to men standing beside truck; and another truck loaded up with marrows and potatoes and things — less leafy than the other one;

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Photo by M McNeill
18 Mar 1940

Ploughing Land
 
A tractor ploughing land beside Parliament Building (official residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons in Northern Ireland) on the Stormont Estate. The Northern Ireland Government is having the land ploughed as part of the ‘Grow More Food’ campaign.