The president creates Committee on Public Information to censor newspapers and magazines

Historical Context Note

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Censorship of expression

Dates

Date of occurrence 1917-04-14

Places

United States (Location)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

The Committee on Public Information (CPI) was created by the US Government on the 13th of April, 1917 to encourage public support for America's involvement in World War I. The committee's purpose was to generate propaganda to promote public backing for the war effort. It did this via magazines, newspapers, movies, posters and, innovatively, by using volunteers known as 'Four Minute Men', who spoke positively about the war for four minutes at social gatherings. It also sought to limit damaging news reports. The CPI was abolished on the 21st August, 1919.

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

89 words

Save this article