'Keep your home clean' public health poster
Object No. 2002/101/4
For more than a century posters have given visual expression to the reach of public health. Appropriating the techniques of consumer culture, their messages have advertised everything from hand-washing to hair-nets, from vaccination to X-rays. Produced by government departments and community organisations, posters have had a role in combating infectious disease, drugs, and poor nutrition, and in promoting healthy habits, workplace safety, and sexual health. The 'Keep your home clean' poster is one of a collection of 17 Australian health and safety posters that have survived from the 1950s. In their range they cover many of the public health issues that concerned government authorities at that time. One of these issues was cleanliness. The mid-20th century was a time when personal and civic cleanliness was stressed as a means of combatting disease, both because dirt itself harboured germs and because filth and litter attracted vermin - such as rats and flies - that were branded as disease-carriers. This small collection of posters illustrates the serendipitous way in which important material sometimes finds its way into museum collections. They were found by the vendor when assisting a friend to go through his late mother's possessions. Leftovers from the days when the woman had been a scripture teacher, the backs of unused posters like these had served as classroom teaching aids on which she wrote her lessons. Recognising their historic and aesthetic value the vendor saved them and eventually offered them to the Powerhouse Museum.
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Summary
Object Statement
Poster, 'Keep your home clean', health, paper, printed by V C N Blight, Government Printer, produced by the New South Wales Department of Public Health, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, c. 1955
Physical Description
Poster, 'Keep your home clean', health, paper, [printed by V C N Blight, Government Printer, Sydney], produced by the New South Wales Department of Public Health, New South Wales, Australia, c. 1955 Rectangular, colour poster in landscape format, titled 'Keep your home clean', promoting disease prevention through the elimination of rats from the domestic environment. The poster features a large black and white photographic image of a rat and a list of diseases carried by rats, fleas and flies. Production details printed bottom left.
DIMENSIONS
Height
362 mm
Width
495 mm
PRODUCTION
Notes
Produced by the New South Wales Department of Public Health and almost certainly printed by V.C.N. Blight, Government Printer, Sydney. The graphic style and the content of the collection of health and safety posters amongst which this particular poster was found suggest that they were all produced around the 1950s.
HISTORY
Notes
According to the vendor, these posters were found when he was helping a friend go through his late mother's possessions. The woman had been a scripture teacher and utilized the backs of unused posters as classroom teaching aids to write her scripture lessons. It is not known where she obtained the posters in the first place.
SOURCE
Credit Line
Purchased 2002
Acquisition Date
6 September 2002
Copyright for the above image is held by the Powerhouse and may be subject to third-party copyright restrictions. Please submit an Image Licensing Enquiry for information regarding reproduction, copyright and fees. Text is released under Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative licence.
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