The Committee on Public Information

Soon after his inauguration in 1917, terrible events reported by war correspondents had changed President Woodrow Wilson’s publicly stated views. He now appeared to agree with those whom he once disagreed with and set the United States on a course towards war, creating the Committee on Public Information (CPI) to oversee public relations efforts communicating this new direction. These efforts would include the use of the press and entertainment media. Notable illustrators were commissioned by CPI to create iconic poster art. The committee would even use news journalists to influence international audiences. The majority of the American public was originally opposed to any involvement in this conflict but quickly came around to supporting American participation on the international stage at about the same time Hollywood celebrities decided to endorse the United States government’s war effort. Along with public celebrity appearances, the film industry produced movies that reinforced the need to support the war effort in whatever way one could. Hollywood played its part in steering the public towards mobilizing for war and building a new American identity that would be understood in an international context, emphasizing the responsibility of being a United States citizen. This ensured Hollywood’s future, allowing it to grow from humble beginnings into the massive globally influential juggernaut it is today.*

Can you imagine what Earth would have been like had the United States avoided the conflict and stayed neutral during World War One? Luckily this idea is confined to the world of the imagination. War reporting combined with public relations allowed us to avoid finding out about that fate. As we know, the First World War ends with victory for the United States, Britain, France, and their allies.*

During the early days of negotiated post-war peace, when movie stars were still black and white projections, the revolutionary marriage of electrical engineering and chemistry would prove an irresistible public lure, especially when combined with the power of celebrity charisma. As a result of Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille’s incredibly influential film work, new fashion styles that once took the public months to adopt, when the media for these future cultural norms was limited to print publications, were now immediately embraced by the audience.*

By the 1930s, world-changing events reported by radio programs were commonplace and television was just starting to be developed into a commercial product. Overseas war journalism, once limited to written accounts accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations, could now be reported with photographic detail, thanks to not only the electrically powered printing press but to the proliferation of movie theater chains and attendant ubiquitous newsreels with moving black and white imagery and sound. Of course, there were forces at work who sought to take advantage of all of the 20th-century advances in industrial manufacturing, public relations and communication technology, in order to implement a fascist agenda. But that is a correspondence with an accompanying illustration, best saved for another time.*

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