"The First Three!" Red Cross WWI Home Front Poster by Benjamin Kidder (1918)

This propaganda poster features an American flag flying behind three portrait medallions of three young men in uniform. These men, Merle Hay, Thomas Enright, and James Gresham were the first three Americans to die on the battlefields of Europe in WWI. This poster was featured in a newspaper headline about the November 1917 American deaths. The caption, “Give till it hurts - they gave till they died,” advertises the Red Cross’s War Week Fund. This poster helped the Red Cross raise one million dollars in a single week