Our Sorority Wasn't Very Smart to Snub Her (1942), a Galbraith cartoon the Marines reissued

Our sorority wasn't very smart to snub her is a 1942 newspaper cartoon by Galbraith, copyright NEA Service, reprinted on a Marine Corps Publicity Bureau handout. A smiling young woman walks arm in arm with two uniformed Marines while two other women stare (NAID 515156).

The gag

The joke is told by the sorority that guessed wrong. In the black-and-white cartoon, as the archive describes it, a young woman smiles as she walks between two Marines in uniform, holding an arm of each, and two other women watch in surprise. The caption is their confession.

OUR SORORITY WASN'T VERY SMART TO SNUB HER,

BUT HOW WERE WE TO KNOW SHE WOULD TURN UP WITH

TWO GOOD-LOOKING BROTHERS IN THE MARINES?

COPR. 1942 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. T. M. REG. U. S. PAT. OFF.

4-7

[signature: Galbraith]

[imprint: MCPB 99570 4-20-42 250]

Two credits on one sheet

The drawing carries a newspaper service's copyright, NEA Service, Inc., for 1942, and the signature Galbraith. The handout around it carries a Marine Corps Publicity Bureau imprint, MCPB 99570 4-20-42 250, which the record does not decode. The credits show a newspaper cartoon reissued by a recruiting office. The record names both makers, calls the issuer type military, and gives the purpose as "Recruit." Its rights line reads "Public domain (U.S. government work)" even though the cartoon itself bears a private copyright; this page reports the line as the record has it. The National Archives copy is in Record Group 44.

What the uniform buys

The archive calls the technique faint and tags transfer: the Marine uniform carries social standing and admiration. Nobody in the cartoon talks about the war, duty, or danger. The uniform is a mark of status, and the payoff for wearing it lands on someone else. The young woman who was snubbed gains standing because of her brothers, and the sorority measures its mistake by how good-looking the brothers are.

It is a light piece. It is also a clear case of a recruiting office borrowing the newspaper funnies to sell enlistment as a social advantage, which is a different pitch from the duty and danger in a Navy sheet like The U.S.S. Marblehead comes home!. The women in the frame are spectators. For women in uniform on 1942 posters, see the Coast Guard's recruiting sheet Serve with SPARS and the War Department's security poster Silence Means Security.