6 December 2011, 18.00
Oxford Brookes University

Arising from the AHRC-funded project ‘Living in Safety: the Culture of “Safety” and Accident Prevention in Everyday Life in Britain, c.1900-2000’, this public lecture will explore the phenomenon of safety education: preventing accidents by using the media to try to persuade people to change their behaviour and act safely. We might know it from the Green Cross Code or Tufty the road safety squirrel, but it started before the First World War, and made use of surprisingly diverse and engaging techniques – from photographs, posters and films to cigarette cards, handkerchiefs and messages on bars of soap – examples of which will feature in the lecture.

The lecture will show how and why safety education started, and how it spread rapidly from the workplace out into wider society – particularly road safety, but also safety at home. It will also discuss what safety education reveals about the changing role of the state in our lives: since 1945 the state has increasingly provided safety education and advice. Why did the government get involved in its citizens’ lives in this way? How have people responded to safety education? These are just some of the issues the lecture will discuss. Overall, it will decode the messages hidden in safety education, revealing what they say about twentieth-century Britain.

There is no charge to attend but places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. For further details or to reserve a place, please contact Rohini Sampath (01865 484864 / 484829; events@brookes.ac.uk).