“Ask the Archivist: Election Special”

Now that we’re in the final days leading up to Election Day in the United States, I pause to reflect on another contest—one that happened many years ago,  in 1936 to be exact.

If you think I’m referring to that of Roosevelt versus Landon, you’d be wrong. I mean the one where Maggie ran for Mayor in “BRINGING UP FATHER.” Don’t know about that campaign? It was in all the papers.

 

 Maggie belonged to the “Women’s Social Club,” which decided she could be a viable candidate. Maybe she would be, but Jiggs was not looking forward to that, and neither were his old neighborhood pals. George McManus, cartoonist of “BRINGING UP FATHER,” turned it into a battle-of-the-sexes tale, one that seemed doomed from the start. After all, who would like Maggie running things? Even though her competition (see below) didn’t look very promising either.

In a special cartoon to boost the series, Carl Anderson (“HENRY”) misreads Jiggs’ sentiments
about the campaign.

 
E.C. Segar contributed another celebrity endorsement for Maggie.

 

In the end, just how serious can a candidate be who got so trounced, yet she didn’t know what day the election was held on?

I hope you’ll all remember that Tuesday, the sixth of November, will be the big day in 2012.