“Now For Some Music” was one of many posters issued by the United States government during World War I to encourage support of the war. This poster was commissioned in 1917 by The National Phonograph-Records Recruiting Corps. The National Phonograph-Records Recruiting Corps. was created to advocate and call for phonograph records that were not being used to be donated to be sent to the troops overseas. Phonograph records were one of few ways to record and re-listen to audio via a black disk. At this time, audio could only be recorded on three-minute intervals; however, any amount of entertainment was welcome by the soldiers who were on duty aboard a ship or in a dugout to help with stifling boredom. The demand by soldiers for phonographs and records became so great that a designated “slacker record week” was created.
This poster was specifically created for Slacker Record Week of October 1918 which was a united effort by people and committees in more than 500 cities and town to collect records for those enlisted on the front. The illustrator, Charles Buckles Falls, was a freelance artist from Indiana who joined the Society of Illustrators during World War I and helped create 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 or book or record drives for soldiers already on the field. This poster was created and reproduced as a lithographic print at the time of its distribution.
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