---
title: Use a Fork - Don't Be a Butterfinger
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/use-a-fork-butterfinger-1944/
description: 'Restaurant hygiene poster: a smiling server lifts a pat of butter from a bowl of ice with a fork, with butter cups on a plate in her other hand.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Use a Fork - Don't Be a Butterfinger

[![Use a Fork - Don't Be a Butterfinger, 1944 US poster: Restaurant hygiene poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/use-a-fork-butterfinger-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/use-a-fork-butterfinger-1944.jpg)

# Use a Fork - Don't Be a Butterfinger

Restaurant hygiene poster: a smiling server lifts a pat of butter from a bowl of ice with a fork, with butter cups on a plate in her other hand. The text plays on the word 'butterfinger' to say not to handle butter by hand. The device is a pun and a friendly figure; the technique is faint.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Plain folks](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/plain-folks/)

## Text on the object

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

```
... for our patrons' health
Use a fork- don't be a butterfinger
[signature: Nydorf]
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C.
Federal Security Agency, U. S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
RS-2
[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944-O-568864]
```

[← This Is Yugoslavia: One of the United Nations](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/us-this-is-yugoslavia-one-of-the-united-nations-1944/) [Woman's place in war! Cartographer, Army Ground Forces →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/wacs-cartographer-photo-1944/)

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- ['This log cabin was the first building erected on the North Bend', Whig print by T. Sinclair, 1840](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/harrison-north-bend-log-cabin-sinclair-1840/) (United States · 1840 · Plain folks, Transfer)
- [Treeing Coons (pro-Polk cartoon), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/treeing-coons-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Plain folks)
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