Children's Crusade for Children advertisement poster
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 22.875 inches (58.103 cm) | Width: 17.875 inches (45.403 cm)
Creator(s)
- L.I.P. & B. A. Label (Printer)
- Children's Crusade for Children (Distributor)
- Norman Rockwell (Artist)
Biographical History
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was born in New York City, New York. He studied art at The New York School of Art, The National Academy of Design and The Art Students League. While still a teenager, he was hired as art director of Boys’ Life, the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America, and began a freelance career illustrating a variety of young people’s publications. Throughout his career Rockwell created covers for The Saturday Evening Post. In 1930, he married Mary Barstow, a schoolteacher, and they had three sons. In 1939, Rockwell and his family moved to Arlington, Vermont. In 1943, he painted the Four Freedoms, a series of four paintings based on a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt. The paintings toured the United States in a traveling exhibition and through the sale of war bonds, raised over $130 million for the war effort.
Archival History
The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2017 by David and Lucinda Pollack.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of David and Lucinda Pollack
Scope and Content
Poster designed by Norman Rockwell advertising for the Children’s Crusade for Children penny sharing relief drive to provide assistance for the war stricken children of Europe. The program was organized during the winter of 1939-1940 under the leadership of Marion G. Canby and Dorothy Canfield Fisher. The program was supported by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and special tin collection cans were decorated with the design featured on this poster and distributed to schools around the country. The children were instructed to give as many pennies as they were years old. The principal or a delegated student would then retrieve the money from the can and mail it to a collection center in Kansas or Vermont depending on the school’s location. The crusade had two purposes: to make American children aware of the blessings of living in a democratic country, and to give these children an opportunity to express their sympathy for the plight of war-stricken children in other lands. The nationwide collection ran from April 23 to April 30, 1940.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Restrictions on use. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum does not own copyright to this material. No information about the copyright was included on the Deed of Gift.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Poster printed on lightweight, white paper with an image of a schoolboy searching in his pocket for change overlaying an image of refugee children walking. The schoolboy wears blue shorts, a white shirt with a red vest and knee high socks. He is standing and facing forward with school books at his feet, reaching into his pocket for loose change. Behind him, three children are walking to the left. The child in front carries a sack in her hand, the middle child is tall and wrapped in a white blanket, and the child behind her is the smallest and has a bag slung over his shoulder. Two lines of white text are at the top of the image and a line of blue text is in a white rectangular box at the bottom. In the top left corner of the box, in blue ink, is a trademark. The artist’s signature is in the lower right corner in red. The paper has three evenly spaced horizontal creases and a centered vertical crease. A layer of paper has separated from the back top right corner of the poster.
People
- Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.
- Rockwell, Norman, 1894-1978.
Subjects
- Children.
- Posters--charity.
- War relief--Europe--History--20th century.
- Children -- Humanitarian assistance -- Associations, institutions, etc
- Posters, American.
- Charities--United States--History--20th century.
Genre
- Object
- Charity.
- Posters