Mar 20, 2025 - Sale 2697

Sale 2697 - Lot 388

Price Realized: $ 688
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(WOMEN'S HISTORY.) Group of "Youth and Life Exhibit" posters promoting good habits. 17 posters, each 11 x 9 inches, on card stock; most with titles in red, most images in black and white but 3 images printed in color; moderate wear and dampstaining. Posters are numbered 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 22, 27, 28, 31, 41, 43, 44, 45, and 48. Washington: United States Public Health Service, circa 1922-1925
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Additional Details

These posters offer simple life advice to young adults, illustrated with tasteful photographs and paintings of well-dressed young Black women at work and play. Many of the images were acquired courtesy of the Y.W.C.A. Typical examples are titled "Healthy Girls Get More Out of Life" (showing women playing ring toss on a campus lawn); "Respect Your Body" (showing examples of poor and perfect posture); "Beauty That Will Last" (advocating teeth-brushing and hair-brushing); and "For a Happy Married Life" (advocating abstinence before marriage).

We find that "Youth and Life" exhibits made a tour of American high schools from at least 1923 to 1925, per newspaper accounts. These posters were likely produced to accompany the talks. The advice offered here--to bathe regularly, to read books, to exercise--might come across as patronizing. In this particular case, the agency also issued a parallel series of 48 posters with nearly identical text but featuring young white women, offering an equal-opportunity patronizing tone to all of the laboring classes. Even "What Sex Brings to the Race" was offered for both audiences. The white versions of these posters are fairly common, but we have found no other examples of the series intended for a Black audience.