# Keep Out Malaria Mosquitoes (1943), the talking mosquito at the torn screen

Keep Out Malaria Mosquitoes, Repair Your Torn Screens is a 1943 U.S. Public Health Service poster signed Margo. A cartoon mosquito squeezes through a hole in a window screen and says "Oh boy! What a break, this is where I come in!" (NAID 514806).

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      Keep out malaria mosquitoes, repair your torn screens

      Keep Out Malaria Mosquitoes (1943), the talking mosquito at the torn screen
      1943 U.S. Public Health Service poster signed Margo: a cartoon mosquito climbs through a torn screen. "Keep out malaria mosquitoes." NAID 514806.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Fear appeal
      Date1943Made byFederal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service (artist: Margo)MediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514806; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) Federal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1200 (NAID 514806).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Keep Out Malaria Mosquitoes, Repair Your Torn Screens is a 1943 U.S. Public Health Service poster signed Margo. A cartoon mosquito squeezes through a hole in a window screen and says "Oh boy! What a break, this is where I come in!" (NAID 514806).

## What the poster prints

The archive describes a cartoon mosquito with big eyes and a long yellow proboscis working its way through a rip in a window screen. It speaks in a balloon. The instruction below it is two lines a householder could act on that afternoon.

OH BOY!

WHAT A BREAK,

THIS IS WHERE

I COME IN!

KEEP OUT MALARIA MOSQUITOES

REPAIR YOUR TORN SCREENS

[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O—516139]

Federal Security Agency

U. S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

[imprint: For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.]

MC 2

Transcription in the FRAME record; the artist's signature, Margo, appears at the top of the transcription. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514806, local id 44-PA-1200, Record Group 44.

## Who issued it

The U.S. Public Health Service, under the Federal Security Agency, issued it, and the Superintendent of Documents offered it for sale. "MC 2" reads like a series number; the record does not explain it. The artist signed as Margo, with no fuller name in the record.

## How to read it

The archive calls this a light fear appeal, and "light" is the right word. The mosquito is a gloating little villain. It is funny on purpose, which makes the warning easy to remember without frightening anyone.

This is government persuasion at its most defensible. The claim is true and checkable: malaria is carried by mosquitoes, and screens keep mosquitoes out. The action is cheap, private, and entirely in the reader's control. Nothing is required and nobody is blamed except the insect. Set it beside She May Look Clean—But, a health sheet from the same year that also warns of disease but pins it on a group of women, and the difference in method is plain. One teaches a fix. The other assigns a culprit.

The same agency recruited nurses with the Cadet Nurse Corps poster. For the wider print effort of the year, see the Office of War Information hub. The Roosevelt administration essay covers the offices that ran the home front, the Office of War Information and the Office of Censorship among them.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Keep out malaria mosquitoes, repair your torn screens, 1943. Federal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service, artist Margo.

- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, NAID 514806, local id 44-PA-1200, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/keep-out-malaria-mosquitoes-1943/