Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?
A father in a civilian suit sits in an armchair after the war, hand at his chin, while his daughter, a book open on her lap, asks the title question and his son lines up toy soldiers and a toy cannon on the floor. The staged harm is not the enemy but future shame in front of one's own children, and the poster leaves one way to avoid it: enlist now so the question has an answer.
- Date
- 1915
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (United Kingdom); artist Savile Lumley
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Asquith Government
- Leader
- Herbert Henry Asquith
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Recruit
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front
- Event
- World War I
- Techniques
- Fear appeal
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain in the U.S. (published before 1931)
Lumley, Savile, artist. 1915. Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-10923.
Text on the object
Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War? [illegible — small printer's imprint, bottom left] [illegible — small printer's imprint, bottom right]
This copy is a photograph of the poster on a copy stand (with Kodak grey-scale/colour-control strips beside it), at only 819x1024px; the two lines of fine print running along the bottom edge of the poster are visible but below the resolution needed to read reliably, so they are marked illegible rather than filled in from the printer/publisher named in this entry's own notes field.
