In the early 20th century, through both World Wars, Americans were encouraged to plant Victory Gardens to both offset the food shortages brought about by wartime, as well as to boost morale.
All About Victory Gardens
Gardening as a patriotic duty, as well as defending and fortifying the homefront by growing fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs were common themes of the posters used to inspire families to start their own wartime Victory Gardens, or to lend a hand in helping with community gardens. There were even films made by the United States government to highlight the importance of this work.
Nowadays, we are unfortunately so many generations removed from the family farm or garden being commonplace, many Americans don’t know the first thing about growing their own food, leaving many of our fellow citizens in a vulnerable state during a time of national crisis.
While ‘preppers’ are often scoffed at by those reluctant to accept that there could ever be such a catastrophic event as to throw us into self-reliance, they’ll be the very individuals who will be prepared to rise to the challenge when “TSHTF.” (Just Google it if you don’t know what that means.) 😀
A beautiful thing is happening, however, in that Americans all across the socio-political spectrum are uniting in the cause of promoting a commonsense approach to independent and sustainable ways of living.
Everyone living through the current COVID-19 pandemic, with food shortages at local grocers, and warnings to stay at home and avoid the public as much as possible, realizes it’s just good sense to be able to live a more self-sustaining life.
Perhaps one good thing that will come out of this trying time as a nation is that a whole new generation will learn the value of food independence and there will be a whole new wave of Victory Gardens for the 21st Century — just over 100 years after they first became popular.
Victory Garden Posters
The artworks featured in the gallery below are from the Library of Congress website.
Many of the posters prompted citizens to write to the National War Garden Commission for free books on “gardening, canning, and drying.”
I have collected some of these and have them linked below. Enjoy!