The WPA & the Golden Age · The Public Good
Diphtheria strikes unprotected children
Chicago Department of Health, 1938
What it is
A WPA silkscreen public-health poster made for the Chicago Department of Health, dated by the Library of Congress to 1936-1941. It renders diphtheria as a bolt of lightning striking at a child.
Why it matters
In these years American parents were still being urged, hard, to have children immunized with diphtheria toxoid, and the poster makes the argument in one image: the disease is a blow, the toxoid is the shield that stops it. Produced under the Works Progress Administration's poster program, it belongs to the Depression-era campaign that put design to work on civic ends, arguing for a specific medical act rather than a vague good.
What to notice
The lightning bolt is caught mid-strike, halted by the flying disc labelled TOXOID before it reaches the child.
A single blocked blow, standing in for a life.
Provenance
- School
- WPA — Federal Art Project (United States)
- Format
- Political poster
- Poster published
- Chicago Department of Health, 1938
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · 98508392
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. government program work (WPA Federal Art Project), any year. Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
