Wash Your Hands Often
Restaurant hygiene poster: a smiling server in a blue uniform lathers her hands over a sink with a soap dispenser, under the line '... for our patrons' health'. The instruction is 'Wash your hands often', with 'often' underlined. The technique is faint here: the friendly uniformed worker is the only persuasive device beside the plain instruction.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1944
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Federal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service (artist Nydorf)
- 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
- Health, 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)
Federal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-801A (NAID 514291).
Text on the object
... for our patrons' health Wash your hands often [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-1 [imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944-O-568864]
