---
title: Every minute lost on this job may mean..
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/every-minute-lost-penicillin-building-1941/
description: 'Construction-site urging poster: a steel helmet hangs on a wooden grave cross marked ''P.F.C. JOHN DOE'' with smaller crosses behind.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Every minute lost on this job may mean..

[![Every minute lost on this job may mean.., 1941 US poster: Construction-site urging poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/every-minute-lost-penicillin-building-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/every-minute-lost-penicillin-building-1941.jpg)

# Every minute lost on this job may mean..

Construction-site urging poster: a steel helmet hangs on a wooden grave cross marked 'P.F.C. JOHN DOE' with smaller crosses behind, above the line that faster completion of 'this building' brings wounded men 'Penicillin the new life-saving drug'. The grave is a fear-appeal about delay; the wounded soldier's need is transferred onto the workers' pace.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

## Text on the object

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

```
Every minute Lost
on this job may mean..
[on the grave marker:] P.F.C. JOHN DOE
The Faster this building
is completed, the quicker
our wounded men get
Penicillin
THE NEW LIFE-SAVING DRUG
Give this job EVERYTHING You've got!
```

[← Every minute counts](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/every-minute-counts-oem-1941/) [Everything you have or ever hope to have depends on winning this war →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/everything-you-have-depends-on-winning-this-war-1941/)

## 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)