Chuck it in the trash can
Industrial fire-safety poster: a hand in a blue shirt sleeve reaches down toward a trash can holding crumpled paper and rags, under the headline 'Chuck it in the trash can'. The line 'Rubbish underfoot may mean fire overhead' sets the risk as the tell (fear-appeal), though it is mild and practical in tone.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Bethlehem Steel Company
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Home front, Labor
- 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)
Bethlehem Steel Company. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-577 (NAID 514057).
Text on the object
Chuck it in the trash can Rubbish underfoot may mean fire overhead © BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY
