---
title: Keep bearings wrapped
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/keep-bearings-wrapped-1944/
description: 'Army conservation sheet: cartoon imps labelled Damage, Rust, Dust and Sweat attack a wrapped bearing with picks, a hose, a shovel and buckets.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Keep bearings wrapped

[![Keep bearings wrapped, 1944 US poster: Army conservation sheet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/keep-bearings-wrapped-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/keep-bearings-wrapped-1944.jpg)

# Keep bearings wrapped

Army conservation sheet: cartoon imps labelled Damage, Rust, Dust and Sweat attack a wrapped bearing with picks, a hose, a shovel and buckets, beside a numbered four-point instruction list and 'Maintenance Mike' pointing at the reader. The fear-appeal is mild and comic: the personified enemies stand for harm to scarce parts, and a bearing is compared to a soldier without a fox hole.

## 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

```
KEEP
BEARINGS
WRAPPED
A bearing without a wrapper is like a soldier without a fox hole. It hasn't got a chance against its enemies-rust, dust, sweat, and damage. Antifriction bearings are scarce. Protect them. Keep them wrapped.
1. If you unwrap a bearing for any reason, wrap it again before storing.
2. Never issue an unwrapped bearing.
3. If you receive an unwrapped bearing, wrap it before storing.
4. Keep bearings wrapped at all times-right up until the time they are installed.
MAINTENANCE MIKE SAYS:
"Keep Bearings
Clean and
Lubricated, too!"
Do you have unwrapped antifriction bearings in stock? If you have-clean, oil, and wrap them now. Don't delay. Do it right away.
[label on figures and objects: DAMAGE, DUST, RUST, SWEAT, SWEAT, SWEAT, WATER, DAMAGE, RUST, SWEAT, DUST, DUST]
[emblem: U.S. ARMY SAVE CONSERVATION PROGRAM]
Bearings Are Scarce--Protect Them
Army Conservation Project No. 94-O-12
[imprint: U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944-O-595884]
```

[← Just meet those schedules, will you?](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/just-meet-those-schedules-1944/) [Keep cigarettes and matches out of trash container →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/keep-cigarettes-and-matches-out-of-trash-container-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)