The Annual Wit & Humor Exhibition
On view through May 31, 2017
How did the average reader, and soldiers in the trenches,
deal with the stress of war in the twentieth century? One way to preserve one’s
sanity was to maintain a sense of humor. From every imaginable corner of a
war-torn world, humor was used to oppose tyranny and satirize the enemy.
War is hell, but troops found that humor stayed the beast, boosting spirits, at least temporarily. Troops laughed while belly-aching daily about the latest SNAFU, they laughed about jawbreakers in the mess, ribbon-happy officers, gremlins fouling things up, the menace of flak, miserable months as a dogface, and the life of a mud-eating infantryman (thanks to the troops many slang words found their way into our daily speech).
The world was full of newspaper cartoons and comic strips, commentary, editorial cartoons, propaganda and propaganda art. Millions of books published in Armed Services Editions were sent to the troops overseas; and cartoons, jokes, and anecdotes created by the troops themselves appeared in newspapers such as Stars and Stripes and Wipers Times.
Folks at home rationed fuel and stockings, collected pots and pans for the war effort, dug Victory gardens, voraciously read reports by war correspondents, laughed with cartoonists, listened to the radio for the latest news, and struggled to stay in contact with loved ones on the front. Some Americans--Nat Schmulowitz among them--collected a daily record of the war, such as ration cards, letters from “somewhere in France,” anti-war flyers, and leaflets dropped over embattled countries.
Here is the “doughboy,” “Sammy,” “yank,” and “jarhead;”
his compatriots, adversaries, and other members of the Allied and Axis powers:
all observed--frequently in racist terms-- by artists, cartoonists, and
writers. The exhibition is a provocative display of patriotic, satirical,
derisive, and propaganda-laden publications that incensed the enemy and
sometimes, the Allies. Drawn from materials in the Schmulowitz Collection of
Wit & Humor, Bombs Away: Humor Goes
to War reveals the spirit, wit and humor of those in uniform, and the
people they left behind at home.
On view through May 31, 2017
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War is hell, but troops found that humor stayed the beast, boosting spirits, at least temporarily. Troops laughed while belly-aching daily about the latest SNAFU, they laughed about jawbreakers in the mess, ribbon-happy officers, gremlins fouling things up, the menace of flak, miserable months as a dogface, and the life of a mud-eating infantryman (thanks to the troops many slang words found their way into our daily speech).
The world was full of newspaper cartoons and comic strips, commentary, editorial cartoons, propaganda and propaganda art. Millions of books published in Armed Services Editions were sent to the troops overseas; and cartoons, jokes, and anecdotes created by the troops themselves appeared in newspapers such as Stars and Stripes and Wipers Times.
Folks at home rationed fuel and stockings, collected pots and pans for the war effort, dug Victory gardens, voraciously read reports by war correspondents, laughed with cartoonists, listened to the radio for the latest news, and struggled to stay in contact with loved ones on the front. Some Americans--Nat Schmulowitz among them--collected a daily record of the war, such as ration cards, letters from “somewhere in France,” anti-war flyers, and leaflets dropped over embattled countries.
Here is the “doughboy,” “Sammy,” “yank,” and “jarhead;”
his compatriots, adversaries, and other members of the Allied and Axis powers:
all observed--frequently in racist terms-- by artists, cartoonists, and
writers. The exhibition is a provocative display of patriotic, satirical,
derisive, and propaganda-laden publications that incensed the enemy and
sometimes, the Allies. Drawn from materials in the Schmulowitz Collection of
Wit & Humor, Bombs Away: Humor Goes
to War reveals the spirit, wit and humor of those in uniform, and the
people they left behind at home. 
“Without humor we are doomed,” noted Nat
Schmulowitz, local attorney and former library trustee, who donated his
collection of ninety-three jest books to the San Francisco Public Library on
April 1, 1947. The collection has grown to over 22,000 volumes and includes
periodicals and audio-visual materials, as well as a personal archive of
materials from two major wars of the twentieth century. The Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor (SCOWAH) is considered the most significant
collection of its kind in a public library. Every year, the Book Arts & Special Collections Center presents an exhibition based on materials from
SCOWAH, in tribute to Mr. Schmulowitz’s generosity and lifelong interest in the
Library.
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