---
title: Your iron ... new ones are scarce
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/your-iron-new-ones-are-scarce-1943/
description: Care sheet for a household iron, No. 8 in the 'Make your Equipment last' series. Tagged by technique, with source and rights.
section: Collection
---

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3. Your iron ... new ones are scarce

[![Your iron... new ones are scarce, 1943 US poster: Care sheet for a household iron, No](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/your-iron-new-ones-are-scarce-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/your-iron-new-ones-are-scarce-1943.jpg)

# Your iron ... new ones are scarce

Care sheet for a household iron, No. 8 in the 'Make your Equipment last' series. A drawing shows a woman running toward a ringing telephone while an iron left plugged in smokes on the board; photographs show unplugging at the wall and ironing. The tell is the warning (fire, damage, 'new ones are scarce') attached to household habits.

## 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

```
Your IRON
... new ones are scarce

• Set the iron down firmly. A fall may damage mechanism... break handle ....nick surface

[drawing: a woman rushes toward a ringing telephone; a plugged-in iron smokes on the ironing board; telephone sound marks "R-R-R"]

• Get the disconnecting habit - to prevent fire ....avoid damage to iron from overheating ....save current

• Always disconnect or connect at wall outlet First

Protect cord and plugs
x Don't let cord touch hot iron
x Don't drag it across the board
x Don't yank cord from socket
x Don't drop plugs

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.
[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O—520004

"Make your Equipment last"... No. 8
For further details see Folder AWI- 11
BUREAU OF HUMAN NUTRITION AND HOME ECONOMICS
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
```

[← Your Cooking Range ... family meals depend on it (save the surface)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/your-cooking-range-save-the-surface-1943/) [Your Refrigerator ... protects health, saves food (hands off the gasket) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/your-refrigerator-hands-off-the-gasket-1943/)

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- [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)
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- [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.
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