---
title: Boys, your sweetheart, your wife or your parents may never know it if you contract a venereal disease
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/boys-your-sweetheart-venereal-disease-batchelor-1941/
description: 'Venereal-disease warning cartoon: a figure marked ''U.S.A.'' in a star-spangled dress stands behind a seated sailor and a soldier, both looking down.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Boys, your sweetheart, your wife or your parents may never know it if

[![Boys, your sweetheart, your wife or your parents may never know it if you contract a venereal disease, 1941 US poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/boys-your-sweetheart-venereal-disease-batchelor-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/boys-your-sweetheart-venereal-disease-batchelor-1941.jpg)

# Boys, your sweetheart, your wife or your parents may never know it if you contract a venereal disease

Venereal-disease warning cartoon: a figure marked 'U.S.A.' in a star-spangled dress stands behind a seated sailor and a soldier, both looking down, with a quoted line saying she will know and suffer. The nation personified speaks for family and country, a transfer of sentiment onto a health warning, with guilt rather than a stated danger doing the work.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

## Text on the object

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

```
" Boys, your sweetheart, your
wife or your parents may
never know it if you contract
a venereal disease - but
I'll know it and I'll suffer
from it."
U.S.A.
[signature: C.D. Batchelor]
[imprint: CARTOON BY C.D. BATCHELOR OF THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS FOR THE AMERICAN SOCIAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATION, 1790 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N.Y.]
```

[← Boy! Did we do a day's work! They give the job all they've got!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/boy-did-we-do-a-days-work-1941/) [Build out rats →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/build-out-rats-public-health-1941/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Clay cylinder with the Ehulhul inscription of Nabonidus, king of Babylon, describing work on three temples](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cylinder-nabonidus-ehulhul-inscription-555bce/) (Neo Babylonian Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Seated limestone statue of Hatshepsut as king, with feminine royal titles on the throne, reassembled from fragments broken up at Deir el-Bahri](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hatshepsut-seated-statue-limestone-met-1458bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Transfer, Testimonial)
- [Glazed-brick panel with a striding lion, from Babylon (reign of Nebuchadnezzar II)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ishtar-gate-panel-striding-lion-nebuchadnezzar-ii-604bce/) (Neo Babylonian Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Limestone relief block of Ramesses II wearing the White Crown, a jubilee relief from his temple at Herakleopolis](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jubilee-relief-ramesses-ii-herakleopolis-met-05-4-256/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Gypsum alabaster slab inscribed in cuneiform, from Nimrud (Kalhu), reign of Ashurnasirpal II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/nimrud-slab-ashurnasirpal-ii-inscription-883bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Egyptian alabaster jar inscribed with the name of Xerxes the Great in four languages (Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian, Egyptian), 486 to 466 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/xerxes-jar-four-languages-486bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Transfer)