Seamen Needed (1943), C. Ruggiero's recruiting poster for the U.S. Maritime Service

Seamen needed is a 1943 recruiting poster of the United States Maritime Service, signed C. Ruggiero, USMS. A smiling young sailor in a dark cap stands before a cargo ship at sea, beside a list of five lines of training and the Maritime Service seal, with one instruction: apply (NAID 515362).

An offer of training

This poster says little. The archive describes a smiling young sailor in a dark cap in front of a cargo ship at sea, with the service's seal. The words are a headline, a list and a verb.

SEAMEN

NEEDED

TRAIN FOR

Deck Department

Engine Department

Steward's Department

Radio Operator

Asst. Purser-Hospital Corps

UNITED STATES MARITIME SERVICE

APPLY

U. S. MARITIME SERVICE

[signature: C. Ruggiero USMS]

What the list promises

The list names five lines of training. Three are named as departments: deck, engine and steward's. Two are specialties: radio operator, and a combined assistant purser and hospital corps post. The poster does not mention pay, length of service, danger, the enemy or the war. The cargo ship in the picture is the only hint of what the training was for.

The archive tags transfer and calls it modest. The seal, the uniform and the ship lend the standing of a federal service to a plain offer. Its purpose field reads "Recruit," and the audience is "Domestic public."

A volunteer appeal, plainly made

"APPLY" is an invitation, not a summons. The artist signed himself as a member of the service, C. Ruggiero, USMS, so the picture comes from inside the organization it advertises. This is recruiting at its least objectionable: it says what is on offer and leaves the decision to the reader. What it leaves out, the risk of the work, is a real omission for a seaman's job in wartime, and a reader deciding whether to sign up was entitled to weigh it.

Charles Alston's 1944 drawing Special Delivery for Freedom! celebrates the merchant seaman for Maritime Day, and For Trade, Travel, Defense is a 1947 Maritime Day poster. The Coast Guard's SPARS recruiting poster of the same year asks women to enlist.