---
title: Easy to Get... Syphilis and Gonorrhea
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/easy-to-get-syphilis-and-gonorrhea-1943/
description: A woman in a feathered hat leans on a brick wall at night, cigarette in hand, in a street painted entirely in red tones.
section: Collection
---

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3. Easy to Get... Syphilis and Gonorrhea

**Content note:** Shows a woman drawn as a stereotyped street prostitute under a headline linking her to venereal disease; shown as printed. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Easy to Get... Syphilis and Gonorrhea, 1943 US poster: A woman in a feathered hat leans on a brick wall at night, cigarette](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/easy-to-get-syphilis-and-gonorrhea-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/easy-to-get-syphilis-and-gonorrhea-1943.jpg)

# Easy to Get... Syphilis and Gonorrhea

A woman in a feathered hat leans on a brick wall at night, cigarette in hand, in a street painted entirely in red tones, under the words 'Easy to get... Syphilis and Gonorrhea'. The fear is carried by the figure and the colour, with no figures or rates given, and the risk of infection is located in one stereotyped kind of woman.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
EASY TO GET...
Syphilis
and Gonorrhea
[signature: illegible, lower right]
[imprint: U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943-O-511293]
```

[← Dr. Charles Hawkins - Inventor, Research Specialist](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dr-charles-hawkins-inventor-research-specialist-alston-1943/) [Eat 3 well-balanced meals every day: Eat the basic 7 every day! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eat-3-well-balanced-meals-every-day-1943/)

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- [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)
