---
title: Blood or Bread
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/blood-or-bread-1918/
description: A bare-chested, helmeted figure carries a limp wounded or dead soldier against a dark sky, above the headline 'Blood or Bread.' The text sets blood given
section: Collection
---

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3. Blood or Bread

[![Blood or Bread, 1918 US poster: A bare-chested, helmeted figure carries a limp wounded or dead soldier against a dark sky](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/blood-or-bread-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/blood-or-bread-1918.jpg)

# Blood or Bread

A bare-chested, helmeted figure carries a limp wounded or dead soldier against a dark sky, above the headline 'Blood or Bread.' The text sets blood given by others against food saved at home, so that eating less is framed as shortening the war and saving life.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

## Text on the object

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

```
BLOOD or BREAD
Others are giving their blood
You will shorten the war-
save life if you eat only what
you need, and waste nothing.
UNITED STATES FOOD ADMINISTRATION
No 16
```

The 'No 16' mark appears at lower left; the signature at lower right is [illegible].

[← Beware of the Wrath of a Patient Man! Keep Your War Saving Pledge](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/beware-of-the-wrath-of-a-patient-man-war-saving-stamps-1918/) [Bonds-Which? →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bonds-which-1918/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)