Gift of Robert S. Mallouk, March 2007.
The collection is open for research.
Use of materials from this collection beyond the
exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S.
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required from the copyright holder. Please contact Special Collections
Department, University of Delaware Library,
MSS 093, Item 001, Robert S. Mallouk scrapbooks of World War II cartoons, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.
Processed and encoded by Anita Wellner, December 2007.
Robert S. Mallouk (b. 1926), a native of Brooklyn, New York, closely followed the progression of WWII. He joined the Army at 18 and went on to study chemistry and engineering and work at the Delaware firms, DuPont and Gore.
Mallouk, son of a Brooklyn merchant who had emigrated from Damascus at age 10 in 1889, was just shy of age sixteen when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Joining the national tide of patriotism and unity after the attack, the teenage Mallouk immediately began collecting the daily editorial cartoons about America’s entry into World War II. As a boy, he collected stamps and built model airplanes, so he easily applied his habits toward building a nearly comprehensive daily collection of these editorial cartoons for the duration of the war.
Mallouk completed
one year at Princeton before being inducted into the army at age eighteen in
1944, eventually serving in the 172d Infantry Regiment of the 43d Infantry
Division in the Philippines during the war. He was in the occupation army in
Japan with the 1st Cavalry Division until September 1946. He then returned to
Princeton, where he was graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1948 and a
Masters in Engineering in 1950. Mallouk pursued a career in polymers at DuPont
and Gore companies in Delaware, with several patents to his credit before
retiring from Gore.
The Robert S. Mallouk scrapbooks of
World War II cartoons includes an autobiographical essay, "Soldier Boy," as
well as 649 wartime editorial cartoons from American newspapers that were
collected by Mallouk between December 9, 1941, through August 26, 1946. All
together, the personal narrative of "Soldier Boy" and the graphics of the
collection document what Mallouk described as the "total war" experience of
Americans in World War II.
Propagandizing slogans such as "Keep the Eagle’s View! Ultimate / Certain / Victory … Temporary Successes / Temporary Setbacks" (Burris Jenkins, January 2, 1942) illustrate the role of the press in supporting the war effort in the States. "Stamp Him Out!" depicts a gorilla-like swastika- and fascist-arm-banded "Jap" Axis figure becoming obscured by a sheet of U.S. Savings Bonds, with a small banner waving "Remember Pearl Harbor" in the corner of the cartoon (Paschke, December 24, 1941). The cartoons present strong graphic communication of America’s response to the war, with the emphatic message that there was strength in unified resistance at home and abroad.
Ranging in size from 6 x 8 inches to 8 x 10 inches or even full-page for some headline events, the cartoon clippings were pasted onto wood-pulp paper that was hole-punched and stored in ring binders. One cartoon clipping was pasted on the recto of each leaf of paper, with dates also clipped or written on each page.
Because of the acidic quality of the newsclippings and page supports, as well as the rusting binder rings, the collection has been rehoused for preservation purposes into mylar sleeves with buffered interleaves. These sleeves are now in new board covers, in housing constructed to enable handling without crumbling and continuing deterioration.
A resident of Brooklyn, Mallouk clipped most of his cartoons from Brooklyn and New York papers, including the
The cartoons are arranged in chronological order.
Autobiographical essay. This box (Oversize 18") also contains oversize cartoons removed from Volumes 1-10.
68 cartoons
67 cartoons
82 cartoons
73 cartoons
60 cartoons
59 cartoons
58 cartoons
71 cartoons
58 cartoons
53 cartoons