The Making of a Man-O-Warsman

This 1917 silent propaganda film, produced by the Ford Motor Company, rallies American support for the U.S. Navy during WWI. Filmed in black-and-white, it opens with a stirring Wednesday dress parade at a naval base—30,000 Blue Jackets march in crisp formation to Sousa’s band, viewed from above as they pass the Commandant in a “measured step of veterans.” The parade, pulsing with patriotic fervor, fills the screen with sailors in lockstep, officers saluting, and flags waving, evoking cheers for Uncle Sam’s might. Intertitles warn of German atrocities—ravishing women, enslaving children, breeding “Huns” to fuel Kaiser Wilhelm’s war machine—urging America to crush this “Kultur.” A call to action follows: citizens are asked to loan binoculars, spyglasses, and telescopes to naval lookouts, with a nod to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt for returns. The film shifts to training: sailors climb a wireless tower, one waving atop its dizzying height, while others crank a hand generator below. Target practice closes it—sailors fire rifles at a range, targets rising and falling, hits signaled with precision. A fervent snapshot of 1917’s naval pride and wartime urgency.