HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY GEE!! I WISH I WERE A MAN I'D JOIN THE NAVY. 1918.

40 7/8x26 7/8 inches.
Condition A-: repaired tears in margins; restoration in top left corner; horizontal folds.
In dark blue navy togs, against a white background, a pretty sailor, the wind blowing her uniform, staring longingly at her imagined future. One of two posters by Christy featuring this particular beauty. The other, with a tan background pushes for service in the Naval Reserve or Coast Guard, this one has a narrower focus, seeking recruits for just the Navy, with a more blatant challenge to the public's masculinity, "Be a Man and Do It!" Christy, who successfully used his fetching women in many of his war posters declared "that his uniformed models represented the all American girl a soldier dreams of coming home to, wholesome, outdoorsy, alluring" (Meehan cat. 15), and he must have hit a nerve, as these images succeded in seducing many men into the service; lettering in black and blue with a red address below text at bottom. Darracott 5, Rickards 32, Power 97.