National Board of Fire Underwriters: "The Careless Family" by Stanley Stamaty

 

Here's a rare gem: "The Careless Family" pamphlet, with cartoons by Stanley Stamaty, created and distributed by the National Board of Fire Underwriters. Stanley is the cartoonist father of cartoonist Mark Alan Stamaty. This was all part of a kids' education project and was probably distributed to schools in the 1950s or early 60s by major insurance companies.

"The Careless Family ... They're Responsible for Most Home Fires!

CARELESSNESS causes most fires. And carelessness means people. Some of the members of the Careless Family are shown on these pages ...

... are YOU a member of the CARELESS FAMILY?"

And we get ten samples of careless people like Hoarder Hattie, Bert and Nessie the Blow-Uppers, Glow-worm Gertie and other alliterative careless family members. This is from a small stack of fire prevention pamphlets and other paper ephemera that I recently bought. This may be the only instance where we get to see a cartoonist's signature on the art.

- This has been an edited version of a blog entry that originally appeared July 18, 2016.