---
title: Beware Mushroomed Tools
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/beware-mushroomed-tools-1941/
description: A stylised photomontage shows a worker's face half hidden by a bandage, a red warning triangle, a pair of spectacles and a chisel with a splayed
section: Collection
---

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3. Beware Mushroomed Tools

[![Beware Mushroomed Tools, 1941 UK poster: A stylised photomontage shows a worker's face half hidden by a bandage, a red](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/beware-mushroomed-tools-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/beware-mushroomed-tools-1941.jpg)

# Beware Mushroomed Tools

A stylised photomontage shows a worker's face half hidden by a bandage, a red warning triangle, a pair of spectacles and a chisel with a splayed (mushroomed) head, under the words 'Beware mushroomed tools'. The tell is the bandaged face used as the consequence of ignoring the warning.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
BEWARE MUSHROOMED TOOLS

Issued by the Ministry of Labour and National Service and produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents,
Terminal House, 52, Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.1.
ML/47
Printed by LOXLEY BROS. LTD.

[signature:] Pat Keely
```

[← Antonescu medal, 'Mareșal al României și Conducătorul Statului' (G. Stănescu, 1941)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/antonescu-conducatorul-statului-medal-1941/) [Čuvaj se partizana! Čuvaj se tifusa! (Beware of the Partisan! Beware of Typhus!), Independent State of Croatia →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cuvaj-se-partizana-tifus-ndh-1941/)

## 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)