Our mission
The Smith Family Comic Archive Project is a 501(c)(3) public charity. It preserves the lifelong creative output of George and Virginia Smith, the husband-and-wife team behind the syndicated newspaper strip The Smith Family. As a guardian of mid-century American social history, the archive documents the messy, glorious track meet of family life and the Smiths’ unvarnished exploration of 20th-century philosophical tensions. We keep that work (original artwork, magazine roughs, and decades of newspaper strips) safe and freely available as an active resource for scholars, historians, and the public.
Our three pillars
Historical Preservation. Safeguarding a comprehensive physical collection that includes original artwork, 1940s magazine roughs, and forty years of syndicated strips, ensuring the survival of these primary source materials.
In practice: we scan and catalog originals and printed strips from the family files, and we collect clippings and Sunday pages that readers send in.
Intellectual Continuity. Facilitating ongoing access to the Smiths’ sophisticated sociopolitical and philosophical commentaries, allowing their critiques of the modern condition to inform contemporary academic and cultural discourse.
In practice: we keep the work online and free, in two places. This website has more than 150 strips, clippings, and magazine originals, each with its paper and year, plus essays on the Smiths’ thinking. The project’s original online archive, thsmithstrip.com, is still online too. There is no paywall and no ads on either. The story of the founders is on the Legacy page.
Cultural Connection. Utilizing the Smiths’ stark realism to bridge generational divides, fostering a dialogue between the authentic domesticity of the past and the complexities of the present.
In practice: we return George Smith’s work to print. The Boy Wonder of Brooklyn is a collection of his early gags, compiled with his grandson Charley George Crerar (https://a.co/d/05pzHZeK). It joins other books from the family files, such as The Boy Wonder of Cartoondom and How It Was. The online archive, on this site and at thsmithstrip.com, puts the strips in front of readers. Readers share memories in the guestbook and send in clippings from the papers they grew up with.
Why it matters
Launched in 1950 and nationally syndicated from 1952, The Smith Family was carried by some 70 newspapers at its peak, including The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Nonprofit status
The Smith Family Comic is a tax-exempt public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It is listed in IRS Publication 78.
Legal name: The Smith Family Comic, doing business as The Smith Family Comic Archive Project
EIN: 85-0594518
Mailing address: 22 Frontier Rd, Appleton, WA 98602
Founder / Director: Charles George Crerar, grandson of George and Virginia Smith
Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.