Popular Entertainment

Elvis Presley Record

This Museum's popular entertainment collections hold some of the Smithsonian's most beloved artifacts. The ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz reside here, along with the Muppet character Kermit the Frog, and props from popular television series such as M*A*S*H and All in the Family. But as in many of the Museum's collections, the best-known objects are a small part of the story.

The collection also encompasses many other artifacts of 19th- and 20th-century commercial theater, film, radio, and TV—some 50,000 sound recordings dating back to 1903; posters, publicity stills, and programs from films and performances; puppets; numerous items from World's Fairs from 1851 to 1992; and audiovisual materials on Groucho Marx, to name only a few.

Topic: Art

Crayola Crayons

Cherished by generations of child artists, Crayola crayons were invented in 1903 by the Binney & Smith Company of Easton, Pennsylvania. Using paraffin wax and nontoxic pigments, the company produced a coloring stick that was safe, sturdy, and affordable.
Description
Cherished by generations of child artists, Crayola crayons were invented in 1903 by the Binney & Smith Company of Easton, Pennsylvania. Using paraffin wax and nontoxic pigments, the company produced a coloring stick that was safe, sturdy, and affordable. The name "Crayola," coined by the wife of the company's founder, comes from "craie," French for "chalk," and "oleaginous," or "oily."
This Crayola set for "young artists" was one of the earliest produced. Its twenty-eight colors include celestial blue, golden ochre, rose pink, and burnt sienna. The box is marked, "No. 51, Young Artists Drawing Crayons, for coloring Maps, Pictures" and contains twenty two of the original 28 crayons. The rear of the box depicts a girl coloring a piece of art on an easel and lists the crayon colors contained in the box. Both the packaging and the color names and crayon colors change over time reflecting social and cultural trends. Crayons are icons of American childhood that recall our collective memory for coloring both inside and outside the lines. Affordable and easily obtainable, they have transformed art education and fostered creativity in schools and homes, providing color to children for generations.
Date made
1903
maker
Binney and Smith
ID Number
2000.0073.41
accession number
2000.0073
catalog number
2000.0073.41

Pace Is the Problem

Camera-ready pen and ink drawing by Rube Goldberg for single cell cartoon Pace is the Problem, undated.This pen and ink drawing looks at integration and the interests in progressing both slowly and quickly.Currently not on view
Description
Camera-ready pen and ink drawing by Rube Goldberg for single cell cartoon Pace is the Problem, undated.
This pen and ink drawing looks at integration and the interests in progressing both slowly and quickly.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
Undated
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23484
catalog number
23484
accession number
1972.299186

Boobs Abroad, P.T. Barnum overlooked a few but they are well taken care of at Monte Carlo

Camera-ready art by Rube Goldberg for his two comic strip series Boobs Abroad, and I'm the Guy, titled P.T. Barnum overlooked a few but they are well taken care of at Monte Carlo, dated Wednesday August 13, 1919.
Description
Camera-ready art by Rube Goldberg for his two comic strip series Boobs Abroad, and I'm the Guy, titled P.T. Barnum overlooked a few but they are well taken care of at Monte Carlo, dated Wednesday August 13, 1919. Goldberg drew for the Boobs Abroad series between 1913-1914 and again in 1918. He drew for the I'm the Guy series between 1911 and 1934.
The artist pokes fun at gamblers, especially in Monte Carlo.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
Wednesday August 13 1919
date made
Wednesday, August 13, 1919
August 13, 1919
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23494
catalog number
23494
accession number
1972.299186

Professor Butts (pencil sharpener)

Camera-ready pen and ink drawing by Rube Goldberg for his comic invention series The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts.
Description
Camera-ready pen and ink drawing by Rube Goldberg for his comic invention series The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. Goldberg drew for the series between 1914 and 1964.
Cartoon text: Professor Butts gets his think-tank working and evolves the simplified pencil-sharpener. Open window (A) and fly kite (B). String (C) lifts small door (D) allowing moths (E) to escape and eat read flannel shirt (F). As weight of shirt becomes less, shoe (G) steps on switch (H) which heats electric iron (I) and burns hole in pants (J). Smoke (K) enters hole in tree (L) smoking out opossum (M) which jumps into basket (N) pulling rope (O) and lifting cage (P), allowing woodpecker (Q) to chew wood from pencil (R) exposing lead. Emergency knife (S) is always handy in case opossum or the woodpecker gets sick and can't work.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
Undated
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23487
catalog number
23487
accession number
1972.299186

Camera-ready comic strip, entitled "Hatlo's They'll Do It Every Time".

"They'll Do It Every Time" was created by Jimmy Hatlo (d. 1963) and distributed by King Features Syndicate between 1929 and 2008. The strip was drawn from 1963-2008 by Bob Dunn (d. 1989) and Al Scaduto (d.
Description
"They'll Do It Every Time" was created by Jimmy Hatlo (d. 1963) and distributed by King Features Syndicate between 1929 and 2008. The strip was drawn from 1963-2008 by Bob Dunn (d. 1989) and Al Scaduto (d. 2007) It was mostly a gag strip, showing the absurdities and realities of everyday life. "The Hatlo Inferno" and "The Hatlo History" were other tandem features of the strip, showing humorous scenes from Hell or history. In this strip, the opening of a boxing gym shows the effects of "Gentleman Jim" Corbett's influence in New York, 1892.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
04/03/1966
graphic artist
Dunn, Bob
Scaduto, Al
author
Thompson, Tommy
ID Number
GA.22613
catalog number
22613
accession number
277502

Haverly's United Mastadon Minstrels

This colored print depicts twenty-five black performers in an outdoor arena or racetrack. They are dressed in tight pants with horseshoe designs that suggest a jockey motif. Some performers hold crops and wear caps and riding jackets.
Description
This colored print depicts twenty-five black performers in an outdoor arena or racetrack. They are dressed in tight pants with horseshoe designs that suggest a jockey motif. Some performers hold crops and wear caps and riding jackets. The center figure is performing a gymnastic stunt.Below the illustration are the words “Haverly’s Theatre / 12 Nights and 6 Matinees, / Commencing Monday, Dec. 26.”
Entertainment entrepreneur J. H. (Jack) Haverly (1837-1901) was born Christopher Haverly near Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. He launched his show business career in 1864 in Toledo, Ohio, where he purchased a variety theater. Inspired by entrepreneurs like P. T. Barnum, Haverly went on to manage other theaters, and he created minstrel and comic performance groups on the East Coast and in the Middle West. In the late 1870s he consolidated his troupes into a single company called the United Mastodon Minstrels which included forty performers, along with a brass band and drum corps. The group continued to grow and at one point had more than a hundred members. Around the same time, Haverly took control of a black performing group called Charles Callender's Original Georgia Minstrels, or Callender's Colored Minstrels, a group of performers which he renamed Haverly’s Colored Minstrels. He promoted their performances as authentic depictions of black life, even creating a mock plantation with costumed actors portraying slaves and overseers. Haverly’s troupes toured the United States, usually appearing at his own theaters in cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. They also traveled to England and Scotland. Featuring lavish stage sets and extravagant special effectsinspired by P. T. Barnum, his performers in blackface makeup and exotic costumes inspired the creation of smaller minstrel shows during the late nineteenth century.
This chromolithograph was produced by the Strobridge Lithographing Company. The Strobridge firm was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio about 1847 by lithographer Elijah C. Middleton. Middleton was known as one of the pioneers of chromolithography in the United States. By 1854 lithographer W. R. Wallace and bookseller Hines Strobridge (1823-1909) had joined the firm as partners. After the Civil War, Strobridge acquired sole ownership of the company and renamed it after himself. Strobridge and Company was well known for circus, theater, and movie posters. After leaving Strobridge and Company, Elijah Middleton became known as a portrait publisher, producing prints of George and Martha Washington, Daniel Webster, and other American historical figures.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1880
publisher
Strobridge Lithographing Company
maker
Strobridge Lithographing Company
ID Number
DL.60.2481
catalog number
60.2481
accession number
228146

Our Handy Bottle-Opener

Camera-ready pen and ink drawing by Rube Goldberg for his comic invention series The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts.
Description
Camera-ready pen and ink drawing by Rube Goldberg for his comic invention series The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. Goldberg drew for the series between 1914 and 1964.
Cartoon text: Elephant (A) eats peanuts (B) - as bag gets lighter weight (C) drops and spike (D) punctures balloon (E) - explosion scares monkey (F) - his hat (G) flies off and releases hook (H), causing spring (I) to pull string (J), which tilts tennis racket (K) - racket hits ball (L), making it spin around on attached string, thereby screwing corkscrew into cork (M) - ball hits sleeping dog (N) who jumps and pulls cork out of bottle with string (O) - my, how simple!
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
October 25 (no year date)
date made
October 25, unknown year
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
publisher
King Features Syndicate
ID Number
GA.23486
catalog number
23486
accession number
1972.299186

Trotting Cracks of Philadelphia Returning from the Race at Point Breeze Park

Color print of a large number of horse-drawn carriages on the road in front of a two-story brick road house (Turner"s Hotel).
Description (Brief)
Color print of a large number of horse-drawn carriages on the road in front of a two-story brick road house (Turner"s Hotel). Eighteen of the horses are numbered and indentified in a key below the image.
Description
A color print of a crowded road in front of a large roadhouse (Turner Hotel, Rape Ferry Rd.) filled with carriages and spirited horses. All of the carriages are occupied by fashionably dressed men. The buggies are without tops – they have flat floors and straight footboards. The roadhouse is in the colonial style. A two story structure stands with a large ring in the rear, three dormer windows above, and a veranda across the front. Here guests stand and watch. Stable boys wait outside the barn in the background. The grounds are well-kept with trees, shrubbery, and picket fences.
Point Breeze Park in Philadelphia was founded in 1855 and raced thoroughbreds for the first time in 1860. It was eventually converted into an automobile race course in the 1900s after trotting faded as a popular sport.
Pharazyn was a Philadelphia lithographer and colorist. He was born 1822 and died in 1902. He had offices at 103 South Street in 1856 and at 1725 Lombard Street in 1870. Made prints for different magazines, as well as fine prints for patrons. Created a large colored folio “Trotting Cracks of Philadelphia Returning from the Race at Point Breeze Park” in 1870. The horses are all named as usual in the subtitle, but the artists name isn’t given; this was normal as the horses were more important than the actual artists.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1870
maker
Pharazyn, H.
ID Number
DL.60.3557
catalog number
60.3557

Sherman Black Hawk

A black and white print of a black stallion running on a hastily erected race track, pulling a sulky. The rider is in a vest, tight pants, a white shirt, and a Homberg hat. The horse’s neck is disproportionately wide.
Description
A black and white print of a black stallion running on a hastily erected race track, pulling a sulky. The rider is in a vest, tight pants, a white shirt, and a Homberg hat. The horse’s neck is disproportionately wide. The center of ring contains two center pole tents with banners which read M…RSHAL and PR…DENT. A judge’s stand is in a circular grandstand with cone-shaped roof and American flag. Spectators line the periphery. The flag in the center of grounds is labeled: US Cr… Society. The scene is the US Agricultural Fair held in West Philadelphia on October 8, 1856.
Sherman Black Hawk was foaled on May 30, 1845 in Bridport, Vermont. He was sired by Black Hawk and Smith Mare, both Morgans, and owned by B.J. Myrick. He was a direct descendent of the founding Sire of the Morgan breed, “Figure” owned by Justin Morgan. At 15.2 hands, Sherman Black Hawk was reputed to be spirited, compact, and well made, and he could trot a mile in 2:40. This enabled him to win first place at both the Vermont State Fair in 1854 and the US Agricultural Fair in Pennsylvania (pictured here) in 1856. The man in the picture is thought to be Hiram Woodruff, a well-known and successful driver of the time. 50,000 attended the race at the 1856 Agricultural Fair in West Philadelphia, PA. Temporary open stands were constructed to seat up to 8,000 people, but people also flooded the infield to watch the main racing attractions.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
maker
Bufford, John Henry
original artist
Humphrey, Charles S.
ID Number
DL.60.3529
catalog number
60.3529

Camera-ready comic strip, entitled "Joe Palooka".

Ham Fisher (1900-1955) created and drew "Joe Palooka" which ran from 1930-1984, distributed by McNaught Syndicate. The comic strip revolves around the life of the title character, Joe, a professional boxer, and was intended to show good sportsmanship and morality.
Description
Ham Fisher (1900-1955) created and drew "Joe Palooka" which ran from 1930-1984, distributed by McNaught Syndicate. The comic strip revolves around the life of the title character, Joe, a professional boxer, and was intended to show good sportsmanship and morality. Tony DiPreta took over art for the strip in 1959 until 1984, when the strip ended as one of the most successful sports strips in comic history. In this strip, Buddy goes to see what all of his friends received for Christmas and wants what they have.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
12/25/unknown year
graphic artist
Fisher, Ham
author
Dipreta, Tony
publisher
McNaught Syndicate, Inc.
ID Number
GA.22471.01
catalog number
22471.01
accession number
277502

Nothing is important enough to tear a man away from his radio & Steve Himself

Camera-ready pen and ink drawing by Rube Goldberg for the single cell cartoon Nothing is important enough to tear a man away from his radio, and for the cartoon series Steve Himself, undated. Goldberg drew for the Steve Himself series between 1921 and 1930.Currently not on view
Description
Camera-ready pen and ink drawing by Rube Goldberg for the single cell cartoon Nothing is important enough to tear a man away from his radio, and for the cartoon series Steve Himself, undated. Goldberg drew for the Steve Himself series between 1921 and 1930.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
Monday January 29, no year date
date made
Monday, January 29, unknown year
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23491
catalog number
23491
accession number
1972.299186

Camera-ready drawing, entitled "Kerry Drake".

"Kerry Drake", created by Alfred Andriola (1912-1983) and [unofficially] ghostwritten by Allen Saunders, was distributed by Publishers-Hall Syndicate from 1943 to 1983. The strip features Kerry Drake, a criminal investigator and policeman.
Description
"Kerry Drake", created by Alfred Andriola (1912-1983) and [unofficially] ghostwritten by Allen Saunders, was distributed by Publishers-Hall Syndicate from 1943 to 1983. The strip features Kerry Drake, a criminal investigator and policeman. Drake used new crime analysis tools to solve complex cases, which gained the strip popular readership. This is an original drawing of Kerry Drake, signed by Andriola.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
undated
maker
James, Alfred
ID Number
GA.22522
catalog number
22522
accession number
277502

Camera-ready comic page, entitled "Glamour Girls".

Don Flowers (d. 1968) created and drew "Glamour Girls", a series of so-called "pinup cartoons" between the 1940s and the 1960s. The cartoons featured beautiful blonds and brunettes, who lived to shop and generally cause males grief.
Description
Don Flowers (d. 1968) created and drew "Glamour Girls", a series of so-called "pinup cartoons" between the 1940s and the 1960s. The cartoons featured beautiful blonds and brunettes, who lived to shop and generally cause males grief. Men were often the characters that drove the gags. This comic page features Glamour Girls in different scenarios at the beach, in a boat, on the phone, at a picnic, as cavemen, and during a fight at a party.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
06/26/1966
graphic artist
Flowers, Don
publisher
King Features Syndicate
ID Number
GA.22576
catalog number
22576
accession number
277502

Predictions for the Year 2070 A.D.

Watercolor drawing by Rube Goldberg for the single cell cartoon Predictions for the Year 2070 A.D., 1970.Considered to be Rube's last cartoon, this watercolor drawing looks humorously at problems with politics, women's liberation, scientific invention and the generation gap, and
Description
Watercolor drawing by Rube Goldberg for the single cell cartoon Predictions for the Year 2070 A.D., 1970.
Considered to be Rube's last cartoon, this watercolor drawing looks humorously at problems with politics, women's liberation, scientific invention and the generation gap, and the potential for those issues to continue for at least one hundred years.
Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was best known for the invention comic art series The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts that he created for local and national newspapers between 1914 and the 1964. In a career that spanned more than half a century, he created some 50,000 individual and series cartoons. His subjects included American politics, sports, and everyday, timeless concerns. As he said in 1940, "Humor comes from everyday situations, because nothing is as funny as real life."
His best-remembered invention comic series looks at everyday life and our love-hate relationship with technology. The series reminds us of the disquieting feelings we have when using new mechanical devices that offer progress while taking away the comfort of an acquired skill or an older way of performing a task. The automobile, the airplane, the telephone, and the radio, among other conveniences, had not been invented when Rube Goldberg was born in 1883. They were world-wide and life-changing innovations by the 1920s, to which everyone was becoming accustomed. The inventions promised hours of entertainment and freedom, but at the same time created fear and feelings of loss of human importance.
Along with the more common fear that the new technologies would take the place of manual labor and human intelligence, Rube Goldberg also came to believe that individualism was disappearing. The more we gave in to the use of innovations and commodities, he felt, the less room there was for our individual perceptions, concerns, and activities. In 1921, for example, he declared that the telephone had "superseded the dog as man's best friend."
Another of Rube Goldberg's continuing themes touched on the humor of man's situation, even to his last cartoons; that nothing really changes no matter how persistent we are, and that man has a "capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimum results."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1970
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23483
catalog number
GA*23483
accession number
1972.299186

Where to Spend the Summer & Foolish Questions - No. 4,703

Camera-ready pen and ink drawings by Rube Goldberg for the single cell cartoon Where to Spend the Summer and cartoon series Foolish Questions, undated.
Description
Camera-ready pen and ink drawings by Rube Goldberg for the single cell cartoon Where to Spend the Summer and cartoon series Foolish Questions, undated. Goldberg drew for the Foolish Questions series between 1909 and 1934.
The artist looks at the benefits of spending vacation in unusual locations and separately gives a sarcastic look at manual labor.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
Friday May 18 no year date
date made
Friday, May 18, unknown year
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23490
catalog number
23490
accession number
1972.229186

Camera-ready comic panel, entitled "Glamour Girls".

Don Flowers (d. 1968) created and drew "Glamour Girls", a series of so-called "pinup cartoons" between the 1940s and the 1960s. The cartoons featured beautiful blonds and brunettes, who lived to shop and generally cause males grief.
Description
Don Flowers (d. 1968) created and drew "Glamour Girls", a series of so-called "pinup cartoons" between the 1940s and the 1960s. The cartoons featured beautiful blonds and brunettes, who lived to shop and generally cause males grief. Men were often the characters that drove the gags. In this panel, a girl stands in front of her parents with a sling on her arm, covered in bandages. Her hair is long and hangs over her eyes. The father says, "And I say she doesn't need glasses, she needs a haircut."
Location
Currently not on view
date made
07/03/1966
graphic artist
Flowers, Don
publisher
King Features Syndicate
ID Number
GA.22377
catalog number
22377
accession number
277502

Camera-ready drawing, entitled "Glamour Girls".

Don Flowers (d. 1968) created and drew "Glamour Girls", a series of so-called "pinup cartoons" between the 1940s and the 1960s. The cartoons featured beautiful blonds and brunettes, who lived to shop and generally cause males grief.
Description
Don Flowers (d. 1968) created and drew "Glamour Girls", a series of so-called "pinup cartoons" between the 1940s and the 1960s. The cartoons featured beautiful blonds and brunettes, who lived to shop and generally cause males grief. Men were often the characters that drove the gags. This is an original artist drawing of the Glamour Girls characters.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
undated
circa 1950s
circa 1960s
graphic artist
Flowers, Don
ID Number
GA.22519
catalog number
22519
accession number
277502

Alarm Clock

Alarm Clock by Rube Goldberg, circa 1970.
Description
Alarm Clock by Rube Goldberg, circa 1970. This non-working, sculpted model signed by Rube Goldberg was crafted [during the 1960s] to replicate a cartoon from the series The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts that he drew for between 1914 and 1964.
Inscription: At 6 a.m. garbage man picks up ashcan, causing mule to kick over statue of Indian warrior. Arrow punctures bucket and ice cubes fall on false teeth, causing them to chatter and nip elephant's tail. Elephant raises his trunk in pain, pressing lever which starts toy maestro to lead quartet in sad song. Sentimental girl breaks down and cries into flower pot, causing flower to grow and tickle man's feet. He rocks with laughter, starting machine that rings gong and slides sleeper out of bed into slippers on wheels, which propel him into bathroom where cold shower really wakes him up.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
circa 1970
depicted
Butts, Lucifer Gorgonzola
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23502
accession number
1972.289709
catalog number
GA*23502
accession number
289709

Dan Rice. The Celebrated Shaksperian sic Clown

This black and white print is an oval full-length portrait of the showman/clown Dan Rice, surrounded by six smaller, full-length oval depictions of him in various roles.
Description
This black and white print is an oval full-length portrait of the showman/clown Dan Rice, surrounded by six smaller, full-length oval depictions of him in various roles. The title of the print appears at the top and the word “Clown” at the bottom.
Dan Rice (1823-1900) was one of America's most famous circus clowns, known for performances that included singing, dancing, shows of strength, trick riding, and trained animal acts. He was also a celebrated humorist, whose comedy acts ranged over the years from Shakespearean parodies to biting political satire. Born Daniel McLaren in New York City, Rice worked as a jockey as a boy and launched his performing career at the age of seventeen with a song and dance routine and a trained pig he called Lord Byron. He joined his first circus as a strongman and in 1844 began performing as a clown. By the late 1840s he had established his own one-ring circus, called Dan Rice’s Great Show. Sporting a trademark Uncle Sam beard, he described himself as the “Great American Humorist.” He later entered politics, running for the Pennsylvania State Senate and in 1868 for president of the United States, although he eventually dropped out. Alcoholism contributed to the eventual decline of his circus career, and he stopped touring in 1885.
This lithograph was produced by G. & W. Endicott. George Endicott (1802-1848) was born in Canton, Massachusetts. He worked as an ornamental painter in Boston before turning to lithography around 1828. In 1830, he went into business with Moses Swett (1804-1838), a native of Poland who had worked previously for the Pendleton lithography firm as an artist and draftsman. Endicott & Swett first opened in Baltimore but moved to New York in 1831. The partnership dissolved in 1834, and Swett continued to work on his own in New York from 1834-1837. Endicott stayed on as the head of the company which his brother William (1816-1851) later joined. After George Endicott’s death in 1848, William ran the firm as William Endicott & Co.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1846-1849
depicted
Rice, Dan
maker
G. & W. Endicott
ID Number
DL.60.3010
catalog number
60.3010
accession number
228146

Bill

Camera-ready pen and ink drawings by Rube Goldberg for his two comic series Bill and Boob McNutt dated June 12, 1932.
Description
Camera-ready pen and ink drawings by Rube Goldberg for his two comic series Bill and Boob McNutt dated June 12, 1932. Goldberg drew for the Bill series between 1931 and 1934, and the Boob McNutt series between 1915 and 1934.
Bill and girlfriend Sally try to recover stolen jewels with the help of old Captain Jim. Boob and Mike and Ike are thought to have been killed while flying on the damaged dirigible.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
June 12, 1932
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
publisher
Star Company
ID Number
GA.23496
accession number
1972.299186
catalog number
GA*23496

Camera-ready comic strip, entitled "Hapless Harry".

"Hapless Harry", drawn by George Gately [Gallagher] (1928-2001), featured the ironies and hypocrisies of everyday life. Harry, the title character, could not get a break and often failed miserably at his own hand.
Description
"Hapless Harry", drawn by George Gately [Gallagher] (1928-2001), featured the ironies and hypocrisies of everyday life. Harry, the title character, could not get a break and often failed miserably at his own hand. The comic strip was distributed by the News Syndicate Company from 1964-1973. In this strip, a pitcher throwing a ball watches as it flies over the umpire's head. The umpire throws back a bar of soap to encourage him to "clean his act up".
Location
Currently not on view
date made
05/22/1966
publisher
News Syndicate Co., Inc.
graphic artist
Gallagher, George Gately
ID Number
GA.22397
catalog number
22397
accession number
277502

As long as they put sandwiches... (wax paper)

Pencil drawing by Rube Goldberg for the single cell cartoon As long as they put sandwiches, toothbrushes, cake and collars in that wax paper, why not go still further?
Description
Pencil drawing by Rube Goldberg for the single cell cartoon As long as they put sandwiches, toothbrushes, cake and collars in that wax paper, why not go still further? Undated.
This drawing pokes fun at the idea of keeping everything sanitarily wrapped with the use of products like wax paper.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
Undated
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23489
catalog number
23489
accession number
1972.299186

Bone Dice

Gambling usually was banned aboard whaling ships, on the grounds that it could cause too much strife among the crew.
Description
Gambling usually was banned aboard whaling ships, on the grounds that it could cause too much strife among the crew. But “bones” or dice were easily concealed from a ship’s officers, and crews found out-of-the way places to spend their free time wagering their earnings, tobacco or other assets.
date made
19th Century
ID Number
AG.024849.3
catalog number
24849.3
accession number
1875.4423

dice, ivory (pair)

ID Number
AG.024849.2
catalog number
24849.2
accession number
1875.4423

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