Popular Propaganda: The Food Administration in World War I

Abstract

The U.S. Food Administration, whose nationwide campaigns for food conservation between 1917 and 1919 at times rivaled the intrusiveness of the better-known Committee on Public Information, was regarded as a worthy, even inspirational use of government propaganda in a noble cause by its volunteers, who included journalists, reformers, and suffragists, as well as publicists and advertising experts. This study suggests a more complex legacy of wartime persuasion from this period than the traditional framework of government manipulation and journalistic resistance.