The enormous output of posters in the United States during and just after the First World War belies this country's late entry into that conflict. Spurred by the example of the various European combatants, the creation and production of appropriate "pictorial publicity" quickly achieved a very high level of artistic involvement and industrial application. Thousands of designs were created, and most of them were printed in very large numbers. As a result, very few of these posters are scarce even today, and only a small handful might qualify as "rare."
 
A large number of artists were involved in the creation of posters during the war. Some of them came to the work with their reputations already secured through their commercial work in books, magazines, and advertising: of these, for example, Howard Chandler Christy and James Montgomery Flagg are probably the most notable.

The posters helped not only with the obvious aim of recruiting members for the armed forces, but with the parallel home-front efforts embodied in various conservation efforts, in the multiple aims of the United War Work Campaign, in the work of the Red Cross, and perhaps most notably in the rapid subscription of the Liberty and Victory loans.