Mama, what did you do in World War Two? (1943), a cartoon stamped for the WAC

A young girl asks her seated mother what she did in World War Two in a 1943 newspaper cartoon signed Webster and copyrighted by the N.Y. Tribune. A red hand stamp reading "Womens Army Corps," with a street address, turned the cartoon into a recruiting sheet (NAID 514976).

Life's darkest moment, recast

The cartoon runs under the heading the transcription gives as "LIFES DARKEST MOMENT." The archive describes a young girl putting her question to her seated mother. A caption explains the joke. Then comes the part that makes it a poster: a red hand stamp with the name of the Women's Army Corps and an address.

LIFES DARKEST MOMENT

MAMA, WHAT

DID YOU DO

IN WORLD

WAR TWO ?

THE QUESTION

PAPA DREADED

IN WORLD WAR I

Womens Army Corps

U.S. Information Bldg

1400 Penn Ave. N.W.

[signature: WEBSTER + C.D.]

[imprint: (c) 1943 N.Y. TRIBUNE INC.]

A newspaper's joke and a WAC stamp

Two hands made this sheet. The drawing is signed "WEBSTER + C.D." and copyrighted in 1943 by N.Y. Tribune Inc. The stamp adds "Womens Army Corps" and an address at the U.S. Information Building, 1400 Penn Ave. N.W. FRAME calls the issuer type "Mixed" and the purpose "Recruit." The record does not say who applied the stamp, how many copies were stamped, or whether the newspaper agreed to the use.

Recruiting by a child's question

The archive tags fear appeal, and names the fear as shame before one's own child. The caption sets it up in reverse. In the last war, it says, the question was for Papa. In this one, the cartoonist imagines it asked of Mama. The joke assumes that a woman's war record will be judged the way a man's was.

That assumption is the interesting part. The cartoon treats women as people who will be asked to account for their war, the same as men. The stamp then turns the joke into an offer: here is an office, here is an address. Nothing on the sheet orders anyone to join. It works on conscience and on pride, with a laugh first, and leaves the choice with the reader.

For other recruiting sheets for women soldiers on this site, see Attention, Women! Join the WAAC, the 1944 Join the WAC Now with its three choices, and Irving Cooper's Weather Observer. The Roosevelt administration essay sorts the era's posters by what they asked.