---
title: 'Hunger Breeds Madness: America''s Food Must Save the World'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hunger-breeds-madness-americas-food-must-save-the-world-1918/
description: A woman collapses over a child beside an empty bowl in a ruined European city while a man stands over them with a lit torch.
section: Collection
---

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3. Hunger Breeds Madness: America's Food Must Save the World

[![Hunger Breeds Madness: America's Food Must Save the World, 1918 US poster: A woman collapses over a child beside an empty](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hunger-breeds-madness-americas-food-must-save-the-world-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hunger-breeds-madness-americas-food-must-save-the-world-1918.jpg)

# Hunger Breeds Madness: America's Food Must Save the World

A woman collapses over a child beside an empty bowl in a ruined European city while a man stands over them with a lit torch, under the words 'Hunger breeds madness' and a credit to Woodrow Wilson. The tell is the threat image: starvation is shown producing violence, and the closing line ties American food exports to preventing it.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
EMIL
GREBS

hunger
breeds
madness
WOODROW WILSON

America's Food
must save the world

UNITED STATES FOOD ADMINISTRATION
FOSTER & KLEISER
SCHMIDT LITHO. S.F.
```

Small printer lines at bottom edges are partly legible; read as given.

[← Hun or Home? Buy More Liberty Bonds](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hun-or-home-buy-more-liberty-bonds-1918/) ["I Solemnly Swear That I Won't Eat No More Ice Cream" (An Heroic Sacrifice) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/i-solemnly-swear-an-heroic-sacrifice-1918/)

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- [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.
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- [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)