---
title: 'Handle carefully: Beware sharp edges on castings'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/handle-carefully-beware-sharp-edges-on-castings-1944/
description: 'Factory safety poster: two bare hands in shirtsleeves reach toward a grey metal casting whose edge is serrated.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Handle carefully: Beware sharp edges on castings

[![Handle carefully: Beware sharp edges on castings, 1944 US poster: Factory safety poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/handle-carefully-beware-sharp-edges-on-castings-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/handle-carefully-beware-sharp-edges-on-castings-1944.jpg)

# Handle carefully: Beware sharp edges on castings

Factory safety poster: two bare hands in shirtsleeves reach toward a grey metal casting whose edge is serrated, between a banner 'HANDLE CAREFULLY' and a lower banner 'BEWARE SHARP EDGES ON CASTINGS'. The technique is faint: the hand poised over the sharp edge implies a cut, a mild fear-appeal to workers, with no injury shown.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
HANDLE
CAREFULLY
BEWARE
SHARP
EDGES
ON CASTINGS
Reproduced by the United States Department of Labor, Division of Labor Standards, Washington, D. C.
By Permission of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, London
[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944-O-596233]
[handwritten: 44-PA-1198]
```

[← Gunners wear wings... Are you seventeen?](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gunners-wear-wings-are-you-seventeen-1944/) [Handle carefully, beware sharp edges on castings →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/handle-carefully-sharp-edges-castings-1944/)

## 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)