Militant Mary

A single-panel comic featuring Mary, a bespectacled woman in a long skirt, speaking directly to the reader. She remarks that people always praise the men returning home from war, but wonders aloud what they'll say about the women in July. The strip exemplifies the newspaper comic format that emerged in the early twentieth century—hand-lettered dialogue in speech balloons, simple line drawing, and a recurring character used to comment on current events. Here, the gag hinges on postwar social anxiety about women's expanded wartime roles and their uncertain peacetime status, a topical concern in 1919 America.