That Liberty Shall Not Perish from the Earth: Buy Liberty Bonds

That Liberty Shall Not Perish from the Earth: Buy Liberty Bonds

Lower Manhattan burns under an orange sky as aircraft fly overhead and a submarine crosses the harbour; the Statue of Liberty stands headless and broken, her head lying in the water at her base. The fear-appeal tell is the imagined catastrophe paired with one remedy, bonds; the transfer tell is the borrowed line from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address set over the national monument.

Date
1918
Period
First World War
Made by
U.S. Treasury Department (Fourth Liberty Loan); Joseph Pennell (artist)
Region
North America
Country
United States
Medium
Poster
Issuer type
State
Regime
Wilson Administration
Leader
Woodrow Wilson
Audience
Domestic public
Purpose
Fundraise
Themes
War and the military, Economy and finance
Event
World War I
Techniques
Fear appealTransfer
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)
Pennell, Joseph, 1857-1926, artist. 1918. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-18343.

Text on the object

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

JOSEPH PENNELL DEL.

THAT LIBERTY SHALL NOT
PERISH FROM THE EARTH
BUY LIBERTY BONDS
FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN

2-B                                                        KETTERLINUS PHILA. 1918

"JOSEPH PENNELL DEL." (delineavit, "drew this") is the artist's small printed credit in the lower left of the illustration. "2-B" (edition/plate number) and "KETTERLINUS PHILA. 1918" (the Philadelphia printer named in this entry's own notes) are tiny printed lines along the very bottom edge, read with reduced confidence given their size.