Uncle Sam Calls A Strike

Uncle Sam Calls A Strike

Kent State

This “Special Edition” poster was created in response to the events of Kent State by a group of Columbia College Chicago students know as the Columbia Collective. Uncle Sam, the central figure of this work, has long been used as a recruiting tool for the American military. Irony is used in this work by turning Uncle Sam into a symbol of recruitment to stand in solidarity with Kent State and their protest against the Vietnam War. In the article “Using Non-Textual Sources” written by Catherine Armstrong, she discusses that “images are manipulated by their creator or their subject”. For this poster, the Columbia Collective is the creator and they have manipulated their subject to promote their beliefs on the events of Kent State and the violence of students as well as the Vietnam war. This poster along with ten other protest pieces by the Columbia Collective was included in a series “Eleven Pieces of Early May 1970” which were all responses to Kent State. This piece, similar to many protest posters, was made with the intent to produce many within a short duration of time. Construction paper, black paint, and a stencil made for multiple uses was used to produce this poster. This allowed for several people to work quickly on the piece in order for it to be distributed in a timely fashion. The poster is kept simple with very few words and imagery to allow further engagement and inquiries from those who pass by the piece. This is a form of marketing the agenda of a protest.

Columbia College Chicago Students

Kent State, College Archives & Special Collections, Columbia College Chicago

College Archives & Special Collections, Columbia College Chicago.

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“The oral histories are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-
No Derivative Works 4.0 License. “ All rights remain with the creators.

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