Shortly after entering World War I in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson established the
Committee on Public Information (CPI or “Creel Committee”) to help Americans understand the
country’s reasons for fighting in the war. The CPI also revealed the role that citizens could play in supporting the Allied cause. This new pro-war campaign was a hard shift from the United States’ former policy of “isolationism,” and lack of direct participation in the war. Under the direction of George Creel, the CPI began publishing propaganda in the form of posters, speeches, films, advertisements, and other varieties of mass media that were designed to influence public opinion.
