---
title: 'Be Patriotic: Sign Your Country''s Pledge to Save the Food'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/be-patriotic-sign-your-countrys-pledge-to-save-the-food-1918/
description: A woman in a star-spangled bodice and striped skirt, with a liberty-cap-style headdress, holds out both open hands toward the viewer above the headline 'Be
section: Collection
---

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3. Be Patriotic: Sign Your Country's Pledge to Save the Food

[![Be Patriotic: Sign Your Country's Pledge to Save the Food, 1918 US poster: A woman in a star-spangled bodice and striped](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/be-patriotic-sign-your-countrys-pledge-to-save-the-food-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/be-patriotic-sign-your-countrys-pledge-to-save-the-food-1918.jpg)

# Be Patriotic: Sign Your Country's Pledge to Save the Food

A woman in a star-spangled bodice and striped skirt, with a liberty-cap-style headdress, holds out both open hands toward the viewer above the headline 'Be Patriotic'. The text ties the flag-draped figure to a request to sign the food pledge. The tell is the transfer of national symbols onto a household act, with 'Be Patriotic' as the abstract virtue word.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Be Patriotic
sign your country's
pledge to save the food

U.S. FOOD ADMINISTRATION

Paul Stahr [artist's signature]
Nº 4
THE W.F. POWERS CO. LITHO. N.Y.
```

Signature, sheet number (lower left) and lithographer's imprint (lower right) are small printed marks at the edges of the sheet, not the main slogan; the imprint is small but legible in the larger scan.

[← Emprunt de la Libération: on souscrit à la Banque d'Alsace et de Lorraine (Hansi, 1918)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/banque-alsace-lorraine-emprunt-liberation-hansi-1918/) [Beat Back the Hun with Liberty Bonds →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/beat-back-the-hun-1918/)

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- [Clay cylinder with the Ehulhul inscription of Nabonidus, king of Babylon, describing work on three temples](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cylinder-nabonidus-ehulhul-inscription-555bce/) (Neo Babylonian Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Seated limestone statue of Hatshepsut as king, with feminine royal titles on the throne, reassembled from fragments broken up at Deir el-Bahri](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hatshepsut-seated-statue-limestone-met-1458bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Transfer, Testimonial)
- [Glazed-brick panel with a striding lion, from Babylon (reign of Nebuchadnezzar II)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ishtar-gate-panel-striding-lion-nebuchadnezzar-ii-604bce/) (Neo Babylonian Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Limestone relief block of Ramesses II wearing the White Crown, a jubilee relief from his temple at Herakleopolis](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jubilee-relief-ramesses-ii-herakleopolis-met-05-4-256/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Gypsum alabaster slab inscribed in cuneiform, from Nimrud (Kalhu), reign of Ashurnasirpal II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/nimrud-slab-ashurnasirpal-ii-inscription-883bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Egyptian alabaster jar inscribed with the name of Xerxes the Great in four languages (Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian, Egyptian), 486 to 466 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/xerxes-jar-four-languages-486bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Transfer)