---
title: 'Don''t let the Absenteeism Bug get you: days worked save lives'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/days-worked-save-lives-absenteeism-bug-1943/
description: 'Long yellow streamer: a cartoon insect with large wings and bared teeth sits at the left beside a blue disc reading ''Don''t let the Absenteeism Bug get'
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Don't let the Absenteeism Bug get you: days worked save lives

[![Don't let the Absenteeism Bug get you: days worked save lives, 1943 US poster: Long yellow streamer](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/days-worked-save-lives-absenteeism-bug-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/days-worked-save-lives-absenteeism-bug-1943.jpg)

# Don't let the Absenteeism Bug get you: days worked save lives

Long yellow streamer: a cartoon insect with large wings and bared teeth sits at the left beside a blue disc reading 'Don't let the Absenteeism Bug get you', followed by 'DAYS WORKED SAVE LIVES' in large blue capitals. Absence from work is drawn as a pest, and the slogan ties attendance to lives at the front.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
DON'T LET THE
Absenteeism
Bug
GET YOU
DAYS WORKED SAVE LIVES
[imprint:] U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943-O-[illegible]
WPB Streamer No. 5-5. For extra copies address:
WAR PRODUCTION DRIVE HEADQUARTERS
War Production Board, Washington, D. C.
```

[← Days off cost lives](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/days-off-cost-lives-streamer-1943/) [Deliver us from evil. Buy war bonds. →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/deliver-us-from-evil-war-bonds-1943/)

## 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)