JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post–Poster Series #2

This striking image is the cover of a pro-union pamphlet leveled at the Australian iron-producer, B.H.P. (Broken Hill Proprietary, a 150-year-old firm), and published in 1943 by the Federated Ironworkers’ Association of Australia. The great social observer and artist Thomas Nast was very aware that much of his “readership” couldn’t read, and so he made his work (which was usually text-heavy) completely understandable as a purely visual message.  So too for artists like the anonymous person who contributed this great cover–there is no question about what might be in the pages of the pamphlet.

It is also interesting to think about the “menacing” part of the title of this quick post–I would consider this still to be an early depiction of a robot (the term then still about a dozen years old) acting in a threatening manner towards humans–and in this case squeezing them until blood money is drawn.  

This is a detail from the 600 dpi scan–click for an even larger image of this sample:

There is a very nice 13×19 inch 600 dpi poster being offered of this cover at the our POSTER Blog, here.