# Don't Be an Amateur G-Man!, Cyrus Hungerford's worker and the bomb Don't be an amateur G-man! is a 1941 cartoon poster drawn and copyrighted by Cyrus C. Hungerford of Pittsburgh. A worker in overalls peers at a lit-fuse bomb through a magnifying glass, and the text tells him to report anything suspicious to the boss and leave the checking to experts (NAID 514131). - Home - Archive - Don't Be an Amateur G-Man!, Cyrus Hungerford's worker and the bomb Don't be an amateur G-man! Don't Be an Amateur G-Man!, Cyrus Hungerford's worker and the bomb Cyrus Hungerford's 1941 cartoon tells workers not to play detective: "report it Quietly and Promptly to the Boss" and let experts check. NAID 514131. ## Techniques named on the archive record Plain folks Date1941Made byCyrus C. Hungerford (copyright holder, Pittsburgh; issuer not named)MediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514131; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) Cyrus C. Hungerford. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-653 (NAID 514131). Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org Don't be an amateur G-man! is a 1941 cartoon poster drawn and copyrighted by Cyrus C. Hungerford of Pittsburgh. A worker in overalls peers at a lit-fuse bomb through a magnifying glass, and the text tells him to report anything suspicious to the boss and leave the checking to experts (NAID 514131). ## The joke A cartoon worker in overalls bends over a bomb with a burning fuse and studies it through a magnifying glass. His line is the punch: he still is not sure. The headline tells the reader not to be him. DON'T BE AN AMATEUR G-MAN! GOSH! MEBBE IT'S A BOMB! [signature:] HUNGERFORD If something looks suspicious around the place, report it Quietly and Promptly to the Boss ...It may be important! Have it checked by EXPERTS...It's Safer!! You are a PRODUCTION SOLDIER... America's First Line of Defense is HERE [imprint:] Copyright 1941, Cyrus C. Hungerford, Pittsburgh, Pa. Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514131, local id 44-PA-653, Record Group 44. ## A poster against sleuthing Several security sheets on this site push the reader to watch and report. This one adds a brake. It mocks the worker who investigates on his own and tells him to pass the matter up, quietly, and let people who know what they are doing look at it. The FRAME catalog tags plain folks, calls the technique faint, and reads the joke as aimed at amateur detective work. That restraint deserves notice. A workplace full of self-appointed investigators is a workplace full of accusations, and a mistaken accusation lands on a real person. Telling people to report a suspicious object rather than chase a suspicious person keeps attention on objects and away from neighbors. The sheet does not say what counts as suspicious, and it routes the report to the employer, not to any public authority. Those gaps are real, but the instinct is sound. The closing lines do the morale work. They call the reader a "PRODUCTION SOLDIER" and put the "First Line of Defense" in the workplace. The move lends the dignity of the uniform to production work. ## Who made it The copyright is in the artist's own name, Cyrus C. Hungerford of Pittsburgh. No sponsor is named. The archive types the issuer as mixed and records the rights as public domain (U.S. government work). For a sheet that pushes the other way, toward reporting, see the Army intelligence poster If he talks off the record ... report him! and a second sheet from that poster's OCASC Intelligence Section, If you question it-report it. ## Sources - FRAME object record, Don't be an amateur G-man!, 1941. Cyrus C. Hungerford, Pittsburgh (copyright holder; issuer not named). - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-653, NAID 514131, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/dont-be-an-amateur-g-man-1941/