CRITICAL STUDIES IMAGE ANALYSIS EXERCISE

The Uncle Sam Range (1876) by Schumacher and Ettlinger (image A) and the poster produced by Savile Lumley (1915) (image B) display a number of comparisons and contrasts throughout. These can be seen in the choice and organisation of the images, their purpose and meaning, the target audience and their social and historical contexts. Whilst on first look, the images may appear to hold completely different purposes, there are a lot of underlying comparisons.


Firstly, both images have selected font, style and how everything is organised very carefully. Whilst their choices are extremely different, they were chosen for a particular purpose. Image A chose this sort of Western styled font in a gold tone. From this you get fed this idea of the Wild West and of saloons, cowboys and money. Western culture stands for wealth and the land of the free, in particular July 4th, which in a way can be seen as a type of early branding.
Image B stuck with a quite sophisticated font, small in size, and placed at the bottom keeping a lot of emphasis on the picture itself. It's legible, and holds and emphasis on 'you' by capitalising and underlining it, which may possibly be referencing James Montgomery Flagg's Uncle Sam 'I WANT YOU' poster.


After inspecting both images and looking at them closely, it's easy enough to realise that they are both there to persuade the audience into doing something. Whilst The Uncle Sam Range is evidently selling a product,  the Savile Lumley poster is selling a particular glorified image.
Image A is there to sell a particular idea, this idea of promising the so-called 'American Dream', which is evident in the image. This consists of being powerful, being waited upon, having a status and being part of this 'land of the free'. Image B sells the whole concept of war to the audience through the use of shaming the individual, sending them on a guilt trip by use of emasculation, youth imagery and the added rhetorical question. 
The whole image assumes that the war is going to be glorified in the future, that everything is going to be ok, that stories are going to be written about it - eventually the outcome of the war will be good. Little subtleties like the man's eyes, the toy soldiers and the story book all emphasise this and provoke the audience into genuinely thinking 'what would I want to tell my children I did in the war?'. Evidently, in hindsight and unknown to these men, they're being sold a false picture of war.
In addition to this, both images also portray a lot of nationalism and imagery. In image A it is a lot more apparent, the stars, stripes, Uncle Sam, the eagle and so on. However, in image B it's much more subtle but it's still there, featuring roses on the curtains, fleur de lis on the arm chair, the beef eater soldiers and the red, white and blue colour scheme the children are in.


Whilst rather unfairly it would be assumed the target audience for image A would be a woman, it becomes quite apparent that this is not the case. The whole idea of this cooker is being sold to the middle class man in a way that makes them believe they need this in their lives through the use of extreme American imagery, such as the stars and stripes, the eagle, this image of 'Uncle Sam'. However, it may also be assumed that this advert would appeal more to the lower class due to the simplistic and racist jokes featured within the image, particularly of the far right 'world' who is there to represent Africa, mocking them whilst making the USA seem superior. It may be assumed that the lower classes may be more persuaded by such features.
The only comparisons that can be made between A and B here is that the potential audience is most likely male, especially in image B. Around the time that this poster was issued in 1915, conscription was not yet enforced, it was therefore a man's choice whether or not to join the army. It was therefore targeting men who may not have particularly wanted to join out of choice due to such things as family or status.

The social and historical context in both images are of importance. As stated above, image B was produced at the beginning of the Great War, before conscription was introduced. Image A was produced in 1876, marking the 100th birthday of the USA. This was all about US dominance, it capitalising and becoming bigger. There is so much imagery within the advert, particularly the characters of Dixie, West and New England, that suggests that the rest of the world dines at the American table and the US feeds them all.

(image A)

(image B)