New York’s scary 1930s venereal disease posters

Think the Bloomberg administration is heavy-handed when it come to public health pronouncements? (Soda is bad, smoking is bad, fat is bad, etc.)

Then check out what New Yorkers were forced to stare at on subway cars and bus depots in the late 1930s when LaGuardia was mayor.

The steep decline in syphilis and gonorrhea cases after World War II in the U.S. is probably the result of antibiotics, not so much these finger-wagging warnings.

They were made by the Works Progress Commission’s Federal Art Project, and if you dig the cool design—or have an interest in the history of bacterial STDs—you can buy reproductions from www.vintagraph. com.