Laurie D'Audney
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt foresaw a long war with heavy casualties and made the recruiting and training of new nurses a high priority.
In July 1942, a 17-year-old freshman at Barnard College in New York City was asked to sit for an important modeling assignment. She earned her college expenses as a model for fashion shows and posing for illustration in the Saturday Evening Post and other magazine advertisements.
William Ritter, a well-known photographer, had her put on a student nurse's uniform. A man wore two navy blue sleeves with white stars and red and white stripes. Mr. Ritter said he had to follow a layout approved in Washington. The photo shoot resulted in the poster, Become a Nurse, Your Country Needs You.
Within a few months, a million copies of the poster were distributed throughout the United States. They appeared in post offices, libraries, public buildings, high schools and colleges. This included Barnard College, where the model walked by the poster in the halls every day. At the end of the semester, she asked to take one and was given two.
The model for the poster was my mother, Weslee Wootten at the time. When she married a Royal New Zealand Air Force pilot, she took one of the posters to New Zealand with her. The other she left with her mother, which I inherited when she died. It hangs proudly in my hall.
The poster endures as an important icon of U.S. World War II. It's been featured in many exhibitions, even internationally. Today reproductions are available, along with its printing on a number of other items.
The model is 94-years-old now and lives in New Zealand. Although many know the poster, she's the only one who knows the story of its creation.
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