Handle with care!
Navy Department safety poster on compressed-gas cylinders: a smiling cartoon workman in a hard hat holds a cylinder marked 'Compressed Gas' beside the question 'Why risk explosions?'. Five small panels give handling rules. The technique is faint: a friendly cartoon everyman delivers plain instructions (plain-folks).
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1944
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. Navy, Navy Department (artist Thorndike)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- 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)
U.S. Navy. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-929 (NAID 514435).
Text on the object
HANDLE WITH CARE! WHY RISK EXPLOSIONS? COMPRESSED GAS SECURE IN PROPER RACKS TO PREVENT FALLING OVER USE CRADLES WHEN LIFTING CYLINDERS WITH CRANES USE TRUCKS TO CONVEY CYLINDERS WHEN IN USE OIL OIL OXYGEN STORE SAFELY AND AWAY FROM OIL [signature: Thorndike] NAVY DEPARTMENT SAFETY POSTER N681 [imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944-O-599126]
