What first commands attention in The Girl on the Land Serves the Nation's Need; apply Y.W.C.A. Land Service Committee is the determined stride of the young women, their faces set with purpose as they march alongside a sturdy workhorse. Their khaki coats and broad-brimmed hats echo the uniforms of soldiers, yet their tools—rake, basket of vegetables, and reins—signal a different kind of battlefront.

The artist, Edward Penfield, arranges these figures in a tight, forward-moving group, their gazes cast outward and onward, inviting the viewer to join their cause. The horse, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with its human companions, grounds the scene in the reality of farm labor, while the bold, flat colors and strong outlines lend a poster-like urgency to the call. Created in 1917, this work belongs firmly to the era of World War I, when posters like this rallied women to fill the agricultural void left by men sent to war. The Y.W.C.A.

Land Service Committee, named in the text, was one of many organizations mobilizing women for the war effort, and Penfield’s image transforms the farm field into a site of national service. Such posters were more than advertisements; they were instruments of social change, urging women to step into roles once denied them. The fact that this piece is now held by Vanderbilt University hints at the journey of such ephemera from urgent public message to treasured historical document.

The viewer is left to wonder how many answered this call, and how the land—and the nation—was changed by their hands.