The Huns Have Got my Gramophone!: Advertisements from the Great War

by Amanda Jane Doran, Andrew McCarthy

Fountain Pens―The Super-Pen for Our Super-Men
Ladies! Learn to Drive! Your Country Needs Women Drivers!
Do you drink German water?
 
When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, industrious companies wasted no time in seizing the commercial opportunities presented by the conflict. Without TV or radio, newspapers provided one of the few ways in which the British public could get reliable news of the war. To cater to their rising readerships, advertising emerged as the new science of sales, growing increasingly sophisticated throughout the war years in both visual presentation and psychological appeal.
           
The Huns Have Got my Gramophone! collects some of the most compelling and cleverly worded original advertisements created between 1914 and 1918. Many of the advertisements are aimed at women, from fearless guard dogs promising protection while husbands are away to soaps and skin creams for “beauty on duty.” Others use the power of patriotism to push new products for men, including “officers’ waterproof trench coats,” and one young officer writing in the Times attests to the coats’ superior weather resistance by boldly asserting that he’d leave his sword behind before he left his Burberry. Together, the advertisements collected in the book reveal how advertisers sought to create new markets for products that took into account social change throughout the course of the conflict.
           
Featuring a range of products, from clothing, cigarettes, and invalid carriages to motorcycles and portable Decca phonographs―the “ideal gramophone for active service”―the book offers a new and unexpected source of historical information and an intimate glimpse of a nation at war.

Genres: History, World War I

112 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 2014

Reviews

[Brigid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This small book looks at the way advertisers in the UK tied their products to World War I and the cultural changes that were occurring at the time. The topics covered are diverse, from the trench coat (invented for soldiers in the trenches) to familiar foods to cars that even a woman can drive. Each short chapter includes a couple of ads and some context for them. An informative and very entertaining read.

[Matthew J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This quick little book takes a look at the tectonic changes in society that took place in the 1910s through the lens of print advertisements. It's an interesting angle and sheds a lot of light on a lot of disparate elements of culture. The focus is on England, but you get snippets of what was happening elsewhere. Fascinating stuff, and packed with reproductions of old ads.

[LM Huffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish the ads were printed bigger so they would be easier to read, also the corresponding commentary could have gone deeper in depth. Disappointing.