Keep oil off floors
Factory safety poster: a worker's leg and boot stand beside a long-spouted oil can that drips onto the floor, with a puddle at the toe and the headline 'Keep oil off floors'. The technique is faint: the drip and puddle imply a slip, a mild fear-appeal to workers, with no injury shown.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1944
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. Department of Labor, Division of Labor Standards (artist F. Kenwood Giles)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- 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)
U.S. Department of Labor. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-930 (NAID 514436).
Text on the object
KEEP OIL OFF FLOORS [signature: F. Kenwood Giles] 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-930-F]
