Health Wanted is a 1943 Public Health Service poster of the Federal Security Agency, numbered TB-2, with the name Kula handwritten on it. A chest x-ray film hangs over a worker carrying a bundle against factory chimneys, with the line "have your chest x-rayed . . find TB early" (NAID 514453).
An x-ray over a skyline
The design is in two cool colors, blue and grey. At the upper left a chest film shows ribs and lungs. Below it a worker shoulders a bundle, and behind him rise factory stacks and a city. The headline is borrowed from the classified pages.
HEALTH WANTED
have your chest x-rayed . . find TB early
TB-2
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943-O-527731
Federal Security Agency
U. S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
Who made it
The Public Health Service, then part of the Federal Security Agency, issued it as TB-2 in a numbered tuberculosis series. The National Archives copy is in Record Group 44, World War II Posters, as 44-PA-947 (NAID 514453). Its companion, TB-3, "have your picture taken, guard against TUBERCULOSIS," signed Kula-Robbins, shows a man at an x-ray unit under a few smiling faces (NAID 514425).
Both carry a line that is easy to pass over: "For sale by the Superintendent of Documents." Anyone could buy the sheets through the Superintendent of Documents. The record does not say how many copies went out, or by which route.
The ask
FRAME tags a mild fear appeal, carried by the x-ray itself: a picture of the inside of a chest suggests that something might be hiding there. The words are calm. They do not describe the disease, name a death toll, or blame anyone for spreading it. They ask for a test and give the reason in three words, find TB early.
The worker and the chimneys set the audience: a man on his way to or from the plant. The poster talks to him as a help-wanted notice would, with health as the position to be filled. That is a slogan. It still left the decision to the man reading it; the sheet names no employer rule, no penalty, and no requirement.
Tuberculosis turns up across this site's health sheets, from the Department of Agriculture's 1917 notice on tuberculosis in hogs to the South Vietnamese Do Not Spit poster printed in the JUSPAO series. They are gathered in US public health messaging, 1917–1969.
Sources
- FRAME object record, Health wanted: have your chest x-rayed, find TB early, 1943. Federal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service.
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, NAID 514453, local id 44-PA-947, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
- FRAME object record, Guard against tuberculosis, have your picture taken (TB-3), 1943. Federal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service (Kula-Robbins). NAID 514425.
