Charles Dana Gibson, Chairman, Division of Pictorial Publicity

This formal portrait by Philadelphia photographer William Shewell Ellis depicts Charles Dana Gibson — creator of the iconic 'Gibson Girl' and longtime cornerstone of Life magazine's pen-and-ink social comedy — in his wartime government role. Seated in a dark suit, his expression is steady and authoritative, the backdrop a draped studio curtain. By 1917 Gibson had redirected his considerable prestige from satirizing Gilded Age drawing rooms to chairing the Committee on Public Information's Division of Pictorial Publicity, mobilizing American commercial artists for propaganda posters and Liberty Bond campaigns. The image carries no cartoon caption; it is a straight institutional record of an illustrator at the height of his civic influence, the humor weekly's most famous alumnus now fully enlisted in the war effort.