Content note: Cartoon severed and crushed human limbs are drawn in the machines' mouths and under the press. This object is shown as it was published. Why
If machines could "talk"... Take care!
Industrial safety poster: two workers stand before a furnace-like machine and a press with eyes and mouths, one with a severed-looking human arm and a hand in its jaws, the other a fist caught under its ram. The machines speak in workers' slang. The technique is faint here: informal, folksy speech and cartoon humor frame a plain warning.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Victory-Builders Division, Bressler Editorial Cartoons, Inc. (artist Packer)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Labor, Home front
- 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)
Victory-Builders Division, Bressler Editorial Cartoons, Inc.. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1054 (NAID 514578).
Text on the object
IF MACHINES COULD "TALK"... FOR PETE'S SAKE!- WATCH WOT YOU'RE DOIN'!-I DON'T KNOW ME OWN STREN'TH! DON'T BE AFRAID - BUT DO BE CAREFUL! TAKE CARE! [signature:] PACKER PRINTED IN U.S.A. Copyright, "VICTORY-BUILDERS" Division BRESSLER EDITORIAL CARTOONS, Inc.
