Original Item: Only One Available. Now this is an incredible example of one of the most iconic Marine Corps recruitment posters ever made. This poster measures 19 x 27½” and does show evidence of past repairs and damage. The best part of this poster is that it actually has a recruiting station address printed at the bottom, 22 Tremont Row, which was located in Scollay Square in Boston, Massachusetts. Looking through newspapers, we found that this recruiting station was open as early as March of 1917, making this a fantastic wartime USMC recruitment poster. This is truly a wonderful poster that would look fantastic framed or linen-backed.

“Teufel Hunden” was one of many posters issued by the United States government during World War I to encourage support of the war. This poster was created as a military recruitment and enlistment poster for the Marine Corps in 1917. The name “Teufel Hunden” stated on the poster refers to a term German soldiers would use when describing World War I American Marines. “Teufel Hunden” translates to “Devil's Dogs” and was a popular nickname for the Marines and many U.S. newspaper headlines adopted it. Other nicknames that were used to describe Marines such as “Leatherneck” and “Jarhead” but these nicknames were not adopted in popular media. The term “Devil Dog” was so well-liked and embraced by the Marines that eventually an assault ship was named after it. This poster includes one of the earliest published usages of the term and helped spread its popularity.

Charles Buckles Falls, the illustrator who helped create this iconic poster for Marine recruitment, was a freelance artist from Indiana. Falls was a part of the Society of Illustrators during World War I and contributed to illustrating war propaganda posters for the Committee on Public Information’s Division of Pictorial Publicity throughout the war. Falls illustrated many posters during the war that helped promote military recruitment. This poster was created and reproduced as a lithographic print at the time of its distribution.

The poster is in good overall condition with some very old tearing repairs, repaired with reinforced backing to the poster. There are also very small pinholes in all four corners, possibly from when the poster was originally displayed! There is also some crease damage, but whoever made the repairs did a fantastic job. No WWI collection is complete without this rare and iconic poster! Semper Fidelis Marines.

Comes ready to frame and display with your Marine Corps collection! This is only the third example of this iconic poster we’ve ever offered, so don’t miss out.

Devil Dog

The Marines of the American Expeditionary Force, namely the 4th Brigade, USMC, received the nickname Devil Dogs from “official” German reports which called the Marines at Belleau Wood ‘Teufel Hunden’. It has been said that this nickname came about from Marines being ordered to take a hill occupied by German forces while wearing gas masks as a precaution against German mustard gas. While the Marines fought their way up the hill, the heat caused them to sweat profusely, foam at the mouth and turned their eyes bloodshot, and at some points the hill was so steep it caused the Marines to climb up it on all fours. From the Germans' vantage point, they witnessed a pack of tenacious, growling figures wearing gas masks, with bloodshot eyes and mouth foam seeping from the sides, advancing up the hill, sometimes on all fours, killing everything in their way. As the legend goes, the German soldiers, upon seeing this spectacle, began to yell that they were being attacked by "dogs from hell."

Note: This poster will ship rolled.