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
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- American Social Hygiene Association (cartoon by C. D. Batchelor, New York Daily News)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- NGO
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Own forces
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Health, War and the military
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
American Social Hygiene Association (cartoon by C. D. Batchelor, New York Daily News). National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-505 (NAID 513985).
Text on the object
" 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.]
