Scanning Around With Gene: More on Children’s Safety

Gene Gable

Last week, I looked at illustrations from a booklet on bicycle safety published in the early 1940s by the Police Safety Council. Because the booklet was intended to change behavior by frightening the readers, most of the kids in those drawings ended up badly hurt, crippled for life, or worse, very dead.

This week is a follow-up with more illustrations from the same booklet, though these don’t show as much death and destruction (with a few exceptions). I’m still intrigued by the copywriting, which seems to come from someone who has a jaded and pessimistic outlook, especially when it comes to kids having a little fun. But carelessness has its consequences, as we discover firsthand from this booklet. Click on any image for a larger version.

We all learned these lessons one way or another when we were young, and the culprits are familiar: thin ice, show-off diving, playing with fire, etc. Some things don’t change all that much over time.

Many dangers come from the interaction between kids and traffic. In a battle with a moving vehicle, the kid usually comes out poorly.

Most of these kids look pretty old to just be learning about traffic, but there were fewer vehicles in the 1940s, and kids played in the streets more than they do today.

But there’s nothing dangerous about big leaf piles, right? (This one illustration is from an earlier booklet by the same publisher.)

It’s tough being a kid. How did any of us manage to survive? Follow Gene on Twitter.