Did the Hollywood propaganda machine give Smog Towns poster campaign an edge?
Again, I have to disagree a bit with you there. There are actually several disciplines that produced amazingly powerful bodies of work either directly about the war or because of its profound influences. It’s just that the propaganda posters were so ubiquitous that they seem to have remained more in the public memory than other bodies of work. I mean, scholars can tell you that the whole field of macramé was profoundly affected, profoundly altered, by the war and by advances in materials brought on by military research at the time. Not to mention the carving of driftwood into incredibly lifelike sculptures of sea life, an art form that really took off in new directions almost wholly as a result of the influence of the war. I could go on. But, yes, the propaganda posters are some of the most compelling images that have survived and they are quite diverse. That was simply because of the wide variety of artists working in the medium, the range of artists employed by the Corps. And yes, I
