---
title: Protect your family from fires
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/protect-your-family-from-fires-1944/
description: 'Housing safety poster: a large red flame fills the left side, and inside it a woman with wide eyes and open mouth raises both hands.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Protect your family from fires

[![Protect your family from fires, 1944 US poster: Housing safety poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/protect-your-family-from-fires-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/protect-your-family-from-fires-1944.jpg)

# Protect your family from fires

Housing safety poster: a large red flame fills the left side, and inside it a woman with wide eyes and open mouth raises both hands. A bulleted list of fire hazards is headed Tell the management, with a blank box to write the fire department number. The frightened face carries the fear-appeal, and the list gives the specific action.

## 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

```
PROTECT YOUR FAMILY FROM FIRES
NEVER LEAVE SMALL CHILDREN ALONE AT HOME!
TELL THE MANAGEMENT IF-
heater or stove doesn't burn right
fuel leaks
flues are not tight
you don't know how to operate your heater or stove
electric wiring is faulty
fuses "blow"
you don't know how to use your fire extinguisher
IN CASE OF FIRE-PHONE . . .
[blank box for a telephone number]
NATIONAL HOUSING AGENCY
FEDERAL PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY
[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944-O-610517]
SAFETY POSTER No. 3
```

[← Protect his future. Buy and keep war bonds](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/protect-his-future-buy-and-keep-war-bonds-1944/) [Protect Your Small Arms →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/protect-your-small-arms-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)