---
title: Quiet!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/quiet-loose-talk-holcomb-1942/
description: Poster in which a hand from a sleeve patterned with stars and stripes covers the mouth of a wide-eyed man in a bowler hat.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Quiet!

[![Quiet!, 1942 US poster: Poster in which a hand from a sleeve patterned with stars and stripes covers the mouth of a wide-eyed](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/quiet-loose-talk-holcomb-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/quiet-loose-talk-holcomb-1942.jpg)

# Quiet!

Poster in which a hand from a sleeve patterned with stars and stripes covers the mouth of a wide-eyed man in a bowler hat, with 'Quiet!' at upper left and two yellow bands reading 'Loose talk can cost lives'. The flag-patterned sleeve links the silencing to the nation, a transfer, and the stated cost in lives is a fear-appeal.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
QUIET!
LOOSE TALK
CAN COST LIVES
[signature:] Holcomb (partly legible)
[imprint:] (c)1942
[imprint:] DISTRIBUTED IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, AND AS A MEANS OF OBTAINING FUNDS FOR AMBULANCES WHEREVER NEEDED. BRITISH AND AMERICAN AMBULANCE CORPS, INC., 420 LEXINGTON AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
[imprint:] LITHO. IN U.S.A.
```

[← Quiet! Loose talk can cost lives](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/quiet-loose-talk-can-cost-lives-holcomb-1942/) [Radiogram: To men of 18 and 19, new enlistment privileges →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radiogram-to-men-of-18-and-19-army-1942/)

## 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)