Looking in magazines during the First World War, there were adverts from tailors to domestic products all taking on a patriotic flare, as well as appeals for money to help various charities. There isn’t a great deal to say about it all, other than it looks to be profiteering somehow. The child above in the Pears soap advert looks to be sitting on a coffin with wreaths, very odd.
As the years go on the adverts become a little bit more distressing, the advert for Pears’ Soap again just is bizarre, I can’t help but think of the mothers who couldn’t afford it and wondered if they were letting their sons down after they had been slaughtered.
Good-bye dear, off to get blown up by the Germans, You won’t forget to send me some Wright’s Coal Tar Soap.
The charity adverts here also seem remarkably bossy. Have you helped yet?
The Samaritan Free Hospital was for Women and they found themselves with less funding.
