---
title: Don't Waste Food While Others Starve!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-waste-food-while-others-starve-1917-1919/
description: A gaunt mother holds an infant and a thin child before a ruined cathedral, while a crowd of dark figures behind her raise their arms.
section: Collection
---

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3. Don't Waste Food While Others Starve!

**Content note:** Emaciated women and children before a ruined cathedral with a crowd of starving figures behind, as issued. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Don't Waste Food While Others Starve!, 1917 US poster: A gaunt mother holds an infant and a thin child before a ruined](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dont-waste-food-while-others-starve-1917-1919.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dont-waste-food-while-others-starve-1917-1919.jpg)

# Don't Waste Food While Others Starve!

A gaunt mother holds an infant and a thin child before a ruined cathedral, while a crowd of dark figures behind her raise their arms. The caption beneath reads 'Don't waste food while others starve!' above the Food Administration name. The tell is the starving-family image set against a household act (not wasting food), which makes a small personal choice stand in for a distant famine.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
don't waste food
while others starve!

UNITED STATES FOOD ADMINISTRATION

Nº 31

L.C.Clinker + M.J.Dwyer [credit, image lower left; partly legible]
HEYWOOD STRASSER & VOIGT LITHO. CO. N.Y.
```

Credit and imprint lines are very small; the first artist's name is partly legible (read as 'L.C.Clinker') and the second reads 'M.J.Dwyer'. Sheet number read as 31.

[← Don't Stop Saving Food](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-stop-saving-food-1917-1919/) [Eastern District Y.M.C.A. Wednesday Night Sep. 26, 23d Infantry Band and Speakers →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eastern-district-ymca-patriotic-meeting-1917/)

## 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)