World War I Poster - The Red Triangle

Henderson, Daniel Mclntyre · 1918

This simple poster has the red triangle along with the letters Y.M.C.A. at the top of the page. Beneath it is a poem by Daniel M. Henderson titled "The Red Triangle," about the YMCA services to American and Allied troops during World War I. The poet, Daniel McIntyre Henderson, was born in Glasgow on July 10, 1851. He wrote a considerable number of poems before moving to the Baltimore, Maryland, but most of them were not preserved. Henderson gave up poetry upon moving, and worked as a bookkeeper with Messrs. R. Renwick & Sons, a furniture manufacturer. Memories of home revived his poetic sensibilities, and in 1874 he wrote "Flow'rs frae Hame," which was set to music by Archibal Johnson. According to the Wisconsin State Work (July 1918, Vol. XXIX, No. 2), a publication of the State Young Men's Christian Association of Wisconsin, "The National War Work Council of the Y.M.C.A. was so impressed with "The Road to France," the $250 prize poem by Daniel Mclntyre Henderson of South Orange, N.J., that an appeal was made to the National Arts Club to supply posters containing the poem, to be placed in every building of the Y.M.C.A. in this country and in the war zones. 'The Red Triangle' was written by Mr. Henderson to further the present Y.M.C.A. campaign.". The top and right edges are worn.