She may look clean – but…
Aimed largely at the young American troops, most of whom were away from home for the first time, the government sponsored the creation of a campaign to control the spread of venereal diseases during the war. The posters warned of the dangers of contracting venereal disease, displaying women as sometimes wholesome in appearance, sometimes clearly sultry and deliberately alluring. The anti-VD campaign was based on the US Army’s experience in the First World War, when it lost over 7 million man-days to soldiers being stricken.
Syphilis was the fourth leading cause of death by disease in the United States prior to World War II (after tuberculosis, pneumonia, and cancer), and the accepted form of treatment was mercury injections, a process that could take up to one year, so the government’s concern was legitimate. Propaganda campaigns which equated prostitutes to Nazi troops were used, as were posters which depicted a faithful wife at home, exposed to a deadly disease through the indiscretions of a wavering husband.
Other posters warned women to avoid dance halls and other areas where they would be likely to meet soldiers and sailors, any one of whom could be infected.
Posters warning of the potential hazards of syphilis and gonorrhea were displayed in bars and restaurants, in buses, subways, and trains, dance halls and public parks, and virtually all other places where people were likely to gather, no doubt encouraging some interesting questions from children old enough to read but too young to understand the subject matter.
Even Salvador Dali was commissioned by the army to produce a poster warning against venereal disease. It is hard to imagine that any of the posters which depicted women as infested with hidden horrors would be acceptable today, but during the pre-penicillin days of early World War 2 they were ubiquitous.