Artists and Publicity Men in the Government's Service

A Harris & Ewing press photograph taken on the steps of a Washington building, documenting a luncheon hosted by Charles Dana Gibson—creator of the Gibson Girl and chairman of the Committee on Public Information's Division of Pictorial Publicity. The assembled group includes government publicity directors, artists, and poster-makers mobilized for the American war effort. Named figures include George Creel, Edward N. Hurley, Joseph Pennell, Frederick Keppell, and others who shaped how the United States visually argued its case for the Great War to the public. The image records the institutional machinery behind wartime propaganda art—Gibson himself visible mid-group—revealing how commercial illustrators were conscripted into the state's persuasion apparatus.