Re-Elect Your Senator Harley Kilgore
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Title
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Re-Elect Your Senator Harley Kilgore
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Description
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Harley Martin Kilgore was born on January 11, 1893, in Brown, West Virginia, a state that he would spend a majority of his life serving. After earning a law degree from West Virginia University in 1914, Kilgore went on to form the first high school in Raleigh County, WV, where he would serve as the first principal. With the outbreak of World War I, Kilgore joined the army and served as an infantry officer until 1920. Following his service in the Great War, Kilgore organized the West Virginia National Guard in 1921. He would return to Raleigh County in 1933 to serve as the criminal court judge until being elected to the United States Senate in 1940 as a Democrat with the support of Senator Matthew Mansfield Neely.
Kilgore served the state of West Virginia as a senator from 1941 until his death on February 28, 1956. He was re-elected to his position in 1946 and 1952. While in Congress, he chaired the Subcommittee on War Mobilization of the Military Affairs Committee, otherwise known as the Truman Committee, which oversaw U.S. mobilization efforts during World War II. Kilgore continued to act as a U.S. senator until his death, after which he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
This poster displays newspaper headlines behind a picture of Senator Kilgore. These headlines show the various positive acts that Kilgore accomplished while in the office of the Senate. It reads "Re-elect your Senator Harley Kilgore," indicating that this poster was from either 1946 or 1952, despite the fact that there is no date on the poster. This poster is reminiscent of Adlai Stevenson's campaign poster for Governor of Illinois in the 1940s. The imagery and the layout show that these campaign posters came from roughly the same time period. Although the political slogan isn't very catchy, it does get the point of the poster across, and the design of the image over the positive newspapers is eye-catching.
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Date
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Circa 1940s
