Your Refrigerator ... protects health, saves food (hands off the gasket)
Instruction sheet with a photograph of a woman cleaning an emptied refrigerator and a cartoon of a startled woman facing a small impish figure perched on an open refrigerator door, captioned 'Hands off the gasket'. The technique is faint: plain-folks in the photographs, and a mild fear-appeal in the cartoon figure as a menace to the rubber seal.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics
- 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
- Home front, Science and technology
- 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)
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1136E (NAID 514668).
Text on the object
Your REFRIGERATOR ... protects health, saves food Wipe up spills at once • When you defrost is a good time to do an all-out cleaning job HANDS OFF THE GASKET ... OR RUBBER SEAL around the refrigerator door.... keep it clean [imprint:] 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. 6 For further details see Folder AWI-4 BUREAU OF HUMAN NUTRITION AND HOME ECONOMICS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
