This classic advertisement from Stackpole-Moore-Tyron Company highlights a very subtle strategy.  This image appeals to be in support for the war, but none of the text even mentions it.  The image of the two men does.  One is obviously a sailor.  The other man is older, and definitely dapper, dressed in reasonably good fashion.  You think of sailors, you think of the Navy, but how is the old man pictured?  He is lighting the sailor's pipe or cigarette.  He's helping the sailor.

The Fashion Of The Day

This is still the era of hand fit clothing stores, but that time was coming to a close.  Mail order catalogues in the rural areas, and department stores in more urban locales were taking over larger market shares.  Tailors and seamstress shops were an old time luxury when had.  Advertising for good service and high quality were the counterpoint to the offer of cheap and easy.

It is important to note that about the turn of the century, nearly 4 out of 5 advertisements were marketed to the purchaser of the household.  That meant women.  While many would look at something like this ad for Stackpole-Moore-Tyron Company and think Men's, it really hit upon women.  The key words here are good service and good merchandise.  The subtle hit are the gentlemen in the image.  A young man dressed up for service.  The older man, too old for war but meticulously dressed.  Could this be father and son?  It speaks much more about the mindset of what is expected of the family rather than just some clothing line.  After all, what is fashion if not the symbolism of what we are? 

The large number of men who volunteered for service left equal sized gaps in the labor force.  Women fell into line for the first time in United States history to work in heavy industry.  They punched the timecards in steel mills and factories, they drove tractors and threshed wheat.  They manned switchboards and operated mass transport.   Most importantly, they kept the economy churning, something which could not have continued with the gaps in the labor pool.