Charles Dana Gibson, Committee on Public Information

This formal portrait photograph — not a cartoon plate — documents Charles Dana Gibson during his service on the U.S. Committee on Public Information, the federal propaganda bureau organized under George Creel during the First World War. Gibson, already celebrated as creator of the idealized 'Gibson Girl' in Life magazine, directed the Division of Pictorial Publicity, recruiting illustrators to produce posters and war graphics. Shot by W. S. Ellis of Philadelphia, the image shows a bald, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit, seated, gazing directly at the camera with composed authority. No caption or caricature is present; this is a straight institutional record photograph, circa 1917–18, received by the archive in 1918.