This is one of Mather & Company’s work-incentive posters produced in the organization’s last year. The posters, printed in Chicago from 1923, were designed to improve workers’ productivity and were sold by weekly subscription to business owners for pasting on the walls of their factories. The company ultimately extended its distribution to Canada and to Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland (as the information on this poster indicates). The Wall Street Crash of 1929 meant that many businesses went under and even those that survived could no longer afford the subscriptions. Willard Frederic Elmes, known for his Western landscapes and images of Native Americans, was one of the well-known artists commissioned to produce these bold, colorful designs, typically incorporating contemporary platitudes and lines of homespun wisdom.
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