The Accident
ca 1914
William Gnash Thayer was an American artist. The Final Inspector, one of Thayer’s most prominent works, was a First World War propaganda poster issued in 1915 by the Chemical Warfare Service showcasing respirator (gas mask) instructions. Thayer also created the frontispiece (an illustration facing the title page of a book) for the book “Gas and Flame in Modern Warfare” (1918) by Samuel James Manson Auld. An authoritative work on gas and flame warfare during the First World War. The Accident is a depiction of a motorcyclist who obviously lost the battle of the road between an automobile and a motorcycle. This could possibly be a Harley-Davidson J Model that was capable of speeds up to 60 miles per hour. The US military used motorcycles for the first time in the First World War, and Harley-Davidson supplied these models. However, the driver of the automobile does not seem particularly concerned about the Harley-Davidson or the motorcyclist as the car races off around the bend. Automobiles and motorcycles obviously still need to learn to share the road.
