---
title: Bearing a burden
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bearing-a-burden-1944/
description: 'A cartoon ball bearing with a face staggers under a crate marked RUSH and cries HELP, above a three-step list: keep bearings clean.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Bearing a burden

[![Bearing a burden, 1944 US poster: A cartoon ball bearing with a face staggers under a crate marked RUSH and cries HELP, above](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/bearing-a-burden-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/bearing-a-burden-1944.jpg)

# Bearing a burden

A cartoon ball bearing with a face staggers under a crate marked RUSH and cries HELP, above a three-step list: keep bearings clean, adjusted and lubricated. A note on the crate says bearings carry the war to the enemy on trucks, tanks, planes and ships. The technique is personification: a distressed object stands in for the strain on wartime equipment.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
bearing a burden
Ball and roller bearings are carrying the War to the ENEMY on trucks, tanks, tractors, trains, planes, ships . . . . . . . . . . .
RUSH
HELP
1 Keep bearings clean!
2 Keep them adjusted!
3 Keep them lubricated!
U.S. ARMY SAVE CONSERVATION PROGRAM
[signature:] chalfonte
ARMY CONSERVATION PROJECT NO. 114-O-19
[imprint:] U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944—O—607659
```

[← Be sure it's right, check and double check!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/be-sure-its-right-check-and-double-check-1944/) [Beat the skin game →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/beat-the-skin-game-1944/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)