China first to fight! is a 1943 fundraising poster for United China Relief, participating in the National War Fund, signed by Martha Sawyers. A Chinese soldier with a rifle stands behind a woman and a child under the headline (NAID 513567).
The picture
The poster is painted. A Chinese soldier holds a rifle and stands behind a woman and a child. The headline makes a claim in four words, and a banner gives the name of the charity. The artist's signature is the only other mark on the face of the sheet.
CHINA
FIRST TO
FIGHT!
UNITED CHINA RELIEF
PARTICIPATING IN NATIONAL WAR FUND
[signature: Martha Sawyers]
Who made it
United China Relief issued it, and the sheet says the charity was taking part in the National War Fund. Martha Sawyers signed the painting. The archive classes the issuer as a non-governmental organization, the audience as the domestic public, and the purpose as fundraising. The National Archives holds a copy in Record Group 44 with the World War II posters. How many were printed is not recorded. The archive also holds another United China Relief sheet from the same year, "China Fights On."
How to read it
The archive tags transfer and calls the technique faint, mostly emotional framing. The soldier and the family together borrow the sympathy owed to civilians for the appeal, and the headline gives China a claim of precedence: it was first. The poster does not say against whom, or since when.
A private charity asking Americans for money for China, under its own name, is ordinary and honest persuasion. The headline is an argument, not a statistic, and it does not pretend to be one. How much the campaign raised, and how the money was spent, is not in the record.
Two other sheets on this site concern China: the Chinese-language America's resources are China's resources sheet, catalogued at 1939, whose only issuer line reads "issued by America," and Charles Alston's 1942 OWI cartoon The Savior of the Darker Races, which shows a caricatured Japanese soldier standing on ground labeled China, Korea and Manchuria. The Roosevelt administration essay sorts the period's posters by what they asked.
Sources
- FRAME object record, China first to fight!, 1943. United China Relief, participating in the National War Fund (artist Martha Sawyers).
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-119, NAID 513567, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
