December 2, 1961 New Yorker Cartoon on the Peace Corps Post Card (Nigeria)
“Do you think it would be all right on a postcard to mention frozen foods, dirty streets, crowded tenements, TV commercials, and things like that?” This is the original cartoon that Ellen Kennedy, wife of Padraic Kennedy, Chief of the Division of Volunteer Field Support –1961-65–purchased from The New Yorker cartoonist. Ellen and Pat Kennedy kindly gave the cartoon to me and I am turning it over to the NPCA when they open their RPCV museum at their offices in Washington, D.C. next spring. The “post card” incident in Nigeria involving the lost postcard sent home by a PCV was a signature event of the first year and because the Volunteers and Staff in Nigeria “held it together” the Peace Corps was kept together. It could have caused the death knell for the agency. The New Yorker, as only they would, found humor in the situation and published this cartoon.
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On behalf of Whimsitoons, we commend The New Yorker's cartoon for capturing the essence of cross-cultural communication challenges during the…