Content note: A stereotyped personification of Hawaii as a woman in a hula skirt and lei, shown as published in 1959. This object is shown as it was published. Why
What did Alaska have that I don't mister?
A bespectacled older man at a desk marked 'CONGRESS', blowing cigar smoke, bangs his fists while a woman in a hula skirt and lei, the skirt lettered 'Latest Drive for Statehood', holds her hands up as though pushing back. The cartoon argues, through the personification of a territory, that Hawaii's statehood effort is seeking what Alaska recently obtained; the technique is a weak fit for card-stacking, as one side of the question is dramatised.
Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon
- Date
- January 27, 1959
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- Washington Evening Star (cartoonist Jim Berryman)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Eisenhower Administration
- Leader
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Elections and party politics, Empire and colonialism
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives, Records of the U.S. Senate, Jim Berryman Political Cartoons (NAID 5730852), retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Jim Berryman, Washington Evening Star. National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the U.S. Senate, NAID 5743280 (NAID 5743280).
Text on the object
CONGRESS LATEST DRIVE FOR STATEHOOD JIM BERRYMAN
