At last, a few words from Remington

As I've been piloting the WABAC Machine here, I've imagined a few KintlaLake Blog readers wondering why I've written so often about Winchester -- once a venerable American arms manufacturer, sadly it's now defunct -- and yet I've paid little attention to Remington.

After all, Remington reportedly is the oldest company in the U.S. still making its original product, and it's the oldest continuously operating manufacturer on the continent, and it's the only American company that makes both guns and ammo here in the U.S., and it's the largest domestic manufacturer of long guns.

So I'll take this opportunity, then, to highlight the "Remington UMC: for Shooting Right" campaign, a series of ads that ran in outdoors magazines throughout 1919.

Illustrated with art commissioned specifically for the purpose, the ads promoted the range of Remington products -- shotguns, rifles, pistols and ammunition. Each depicted a prototypically masculine American marksman or sportsman -- "dominating, well-coordinated manhood," to quote one of the ads -- and nodded to a segment of the company's market, from youngsters to hunters to recreational shooters.

The tone of the campaign was manly as hell and unabashedly nationalistic. This was post-WWI jingoism at its best, going well beyond flag-waving patriotic pride. (A latter-day jargonista might say that it made a case for "American exceptionalism.") In "Trap Shooting Becomes of World-wide Importance," for example, the copy began,

"Every man who makes trap shooting one of his recreations thereby contributes both to his own pleasure and success in life and to the success and security of his country.

"The present great world demand for American leadership raises this long popular, valuable and distinctly American pastime of virile men to greater-than-ever importance."

From "Civilian America on the Rifle Range":

"America can not forget -- nor will the world -- that in assuming world-leadership she must make more than ever sure of backing up with reality the traditional skill in marksmanship of her citizens."

Between those two ads, it sounds to me like Remington advocated that Americans claim (or reclaim) the title, "a nation of riflemen."

My favorite, however, of those I've seen, has to be "More American Reserve Power." Below the image of a hunter resting with his kill, a Rocky Mountain Goat, this:

"The strength that comes from the hills was never worth more in this country than it is today. Both to the man himself and to all about him.

"No poison-pollen of Old World imperialism gone to seed can contaminate -- nor any attempt of crowd-sickened collectivism undermine -- the priceless individualism of the American who truly keeps his feet on the earth."

Wow -- any questions?