Russian Childcare Posters

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This collection of 16 instructive posters on childcare were produced by the Ministerstvo Zdravookhraneniye (Ministry of Health) in 1930s Soviet Russia. Many of them were produced in the tens of thousands as a way of educating people on how best to look after their children and adequately safeguard a child's health.

The importance of a balanced and nutritious diet is a key theme of the posters. In a handful of the posters the vitamin content of a variety of foods is shown alongside still-life drawings of those different food types. There are also detailed instructions on how to prepare juices from raw fruit and vegetables which was something recommended by the Doctor's Soviet for the feeding of infants.

As well as nutrition daily health-care and cleansing are addressed with posters showing the proper way to cut a child's fingernails, how to weigh your child and the best way to bathe, feed and carry children. One of the posters includes a lengthy quote from Lenin extolling the virtues of creating communal creches which mothers could send their children to so that they themselves might go out to work.

The physical versions of these posters are a variety of sizes and can be viewed through Archives Services within the Library.

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