Vietnam War Protest and American Antiwar Activism: Maxwell Griffith and Charles Goodsell, The Americans Are Coming: End the War in Vietnam, 1970

Anti-Vietnam War Counterculture Activism Protest

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Griffith, Maxwell, and Charles Goodsell. The Americans Are Coming: End the War in Vietnam ([1970]), an illustrated antiwar broadside urging Americans to oppose United States military intervention in Vietnam through direct correspondence with political representatives in Washington, D.C. Published during the expansion of antiwar demonstrations and grassroots protest against the Nixon administration's Vietnam policies, the broadside combines an image of Vietnamese civilian life with a handwritten appeal by Griffith encouraging individual political action. Its message employs a play on the military draft to advocate letter-writing as an alternative form of participation in the war: "The only draft system we use is one of rough draft. So pick up your pen... Send it to Washington D.C."

The Americans Are Coming: End the War in Vietnam. Griffith, Maxwell, and Charles Goodsell. Vineyard Haven, MA: P.T.P., [1970]. Illustrated broadside, measuring 8.5 x 11 inches, printed on one side, with ink annotations. A black-ink woodcut depicts a Vietnamese woman on horseback reaching toward a child inside a hut. The domestic scene places Vietnamese civilians at the center of an American antiwar appeal, contrasting ordinary family life with the military intervention condemned in the title. Griffith's handwritten message calls upon recipients to direct their objections to Washington, identifying personal correspondence as a practical means of political protest.

The broadside appeared during a period of intensified opposition to the Vietnam War, following the nationwide Moratorium demonstrations of October and November 1969 and amid renewed protests over the American expansion of military operations into Cambodia in 1970. Unlike protest materials announcing rallies or demonstrations, Griffith and Goodsell's broadside directs its audience toward individual written appeals to federal officials. Its combination of woodcut imagery, handwritten political commentary, and an explicit instruction to contact Washington records a form of antiwar organizing intended to encourage participation beyond public demonstrations. Ink annotations present; no further condition defects specified.

Item #22260

Price: $225.00