Quarantine

A few new collage sheets hit the shop this weekend, including an assortment of vintage quarantine posters and a somewhat unconventional collection of World War II propaganda posters aimed at educating troops on the dangers of loose women.

Here's what the UK's Daily Mail had to say on the topic:

American health authorities tried to lessen the taboo that went along with sexually transmitted diseases in the years following World War II by launching a provocative ad campaign.

There are no official statistics to show how many people contracted sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis and gonorrhea, though the prevalence of these diseases jumped radically due to the movement of troops during that time. The sexual proclivities of soldiers, often lonely, far from home, and infatuated by foreign women, played a major role in the spread of the diseases in the middle of the 20th century.

The posters of the time played into the stereotypes of soldiers, as well as preconceived notions of the diseases. The references to prostitutes show that it was commonplace for soldiers to pick up call girls during their stays abroad. The ‘good time gals’ were used as sources of entertainment in the midst of the violence and horror of war.