Here is the Junior Fire Marshal Magazine from
1957. It's formatted like a Weekly Reader, which was a free newsprint booklet we would get in Roosevelt Elementary School (Iowa City, IA) back in the 1960s and early 70s. Well, pretty much all suburban public school pupils got Weekly Readers back in the day.
Sponsored by The Hartford, there are some great midcentury modern
examples of cartoon illustration in these fire safety primers for kids. The art is all uncredited. I have a couple more of these Junior
Fire Marshal Magazines, so I will continue to share them since they have
been most likely not seen for many decades. Any guesses as
to authorship would be welcome!
- Edited from a blog entry dated July 20, 2016.
Not sure I ever saw the magazine, but do remember they passed out Hartford fire marshal badges in the early 60s -- had a bit of a flashback when I spotted a badge in a comics shop. They were red plastic with metal foil pressed on, like a lot of toys of the era.
ReplyDeleteAlso remember Weekly Reader and its teen counterpart Junior Scholastic. At home we got Humpty Dumpty, a digest-sized pulp mag full of similar modern illustrations, and the glossy Jack and Jill with more traditional storybook art.
Some years later I gave my nephews gift subscriptions to Disney Adventures, which was slick on-model Disney marketing but had a little of the old childhood magazine buzz. The nephews are in their 30s now; one works in animation and I like to think I had something to do with it.
I remember these Jr Fire Marshall magazines from my ancient youth. We got them through school as I recall. I remember getting a Jr Fire Marshall plastic firefighter’s helmet as well. I was wearing it when I decided to inspect my neighbor’s burning trash bin. I bent over to look in, the hat fell into the bin and melted. The end of the my firefighting career.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting the magazine. It would be good to i.d. the artist (classic late ’50’s/'Roy Doty'/advertising artist style).
LR