My Country 'Tis of Thee - New Prussia
- Title:
- My Country 'Tis of Thee - New Prussia
- Alternate Title:
- New Prussia
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- American Rights Committee
- Date:
- 1916
- Posted Date:
- 2015-08-25
- ID Number:
- 2006.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2006_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1900 - 1919
- Materials/Techniques:
- printing
- Subject:
- World War I
Satirical - Measurement:
- 22 x 21 on sheet 28 x 24 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- Early in 1916, the U.S. remained neutral in World War I in light of strong isolationist and pro-German sentiment. Life Magazine, on February 10, 1916, weighed in on the other side with a "Get-Ready Number" featuring a dramatic cover map in color, ID #2160. The map shows the U.S. renamed New Prussia, and American city names replaced with German or Germanized versions. Washington is New Berlin, Chicago is Schlauterhaus, and Boston is Kulturplatz. Denverburg and Salzlakenburg are presumably German, but Florida has become Turconia, California is Japonica, and the northwest is dominated by Nagaseattle and New Kobe. New Mexico is an "American Reservation" in Der Grosse Desert.
Promptly thereafter, there was a response in kind from a pro-German propaganda publication, The Fatherland Weekly. The Fatherland Weekly was published in New York by George Sylvester Viereck, a poet, author and propagandist (who later supported Hitler and spent 1942 to 1947 in an American prison as an unregistered Nazi agent). On the cover of its edition of February 23, 1916, was a "New Map of the D.S.E. - Dependent States of England - Formerly U.S.A. With No Apologies to 'Life.'" ID #2550. This map shows the U.S. renamed New Britain; Washington is London on the Potomac, New York is Duke of Yorktown, Boston is Queen Maryville, Chicago is Dryrottingham, and New Orleans is New Liverpool. The Gulf of Mexico is named after Lord Northcliff and the Atlantic is Lake Winston Churchill. The Japanese still control the West Coast, and the American Reservation remains, on the Mexican border.
But the battle of the isolationist-interventionist maps was not over. The original Life Magazine cover was then reprinted as a black-and-white broadside by the American Rights Committee as part of its independent effort to overcome American neutrality. ID #2006. The American Rights Committee was a group of distinguished New Yorkers, led by "George Haven Putnam, the well-known publisher." In a "great mass meeting" at Carnegie Hall on March 13, 1916, the Committee broadly and raucously condemned "Prussian Imperial Militarism," its "brutal and cruel military rule" and "practices of unprecedented barbarity." Accordingly, the Committee "Resolved, That the safety and honour of the American people and their duty to defend and maintain the rights of humanity require us to approve the cause for which the Entente Allies are fighting, and to extend to these Allies by any means in our power, not only sympathy, but direct co-operation at the proper time." New York Times, March 14, 1916, pp. 1, 8; The Outlook, March 22, 1916, pp. 646, 666-67, https://books.google.com/books?id=PtTUAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA403&lpg=PA403&dq=%22american+rights+committee%22&source=bl&ots=dYFti3DCsO&sig=oy21hrELzMO3YrMwNv-aGJVffwE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UpyfVKXRD4 SggT8jICIAQ&ved=0CJgBEOgBMBo#v=onepage&q=%22american%20rights%20committee%22&f=false, accessed December 28, 2014. Although the broadside is undated, it was likely published in connection with the "great mass meeting" on March 13.
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Repository:
- Private Collection of PJ Mode
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.