Lord Kitchener Wants You

The most copied image in wartime persuasion began as a magazine cover, not a government commission: Alfred Leete drew Lord Kitchener for London Opinion in 1914, and the design was then adapted as a recruiting poster. Its lesson is direct address. The foreshortened finger and level stare single out each passerby, turning a national appeal into a personal question that is hard to walk past. It also teaches caution about fame. Historians still dispute how much the Kitchener image was actually used for recruiting, and its reputation owes a great deal to the imitations it inspired, Uncle Sam among them.