Do you know the source of the name "murgatroyd" for MIT female students in 1940s?
January 29th, 2008 Posted in Help UsDear Colleagues,
Just received the following from a local high school teacher:
“I would be interested if any of you know where the name “Murgatroyd” came from for a female student at MIT in the 1940s. I recall seeing a caricature of the flat-chested nerdy-looking Murgatroyd in my Dads yearbook or newsletter or something, but I cant find it anywhere in the papers he left behind. (There were very few women in my Dad’s class of 1948. He was so disappointed that I didn’t want to go there in 1967!) Google didn’t help, so I went to the MIT website to read about the history of female students. (First female student 1871)”
I’m stumped. Does anyone have any ideas?
thanks,
Heather Munro Prescott, Ph.D.
Professor of History
Coordinator, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Central Connecticut State University
2 Responses to “Do you know the source of the name "murgatroyd" for MIT female students in 1940s?”
By melanie on Mar 29, 2008
Snagglepuss used to say it when i watched cartoons in the 60s. Here http://www.toonopedia.com/snaggle.htm they say the source of that is the 1944 movie “Meet the People.”
By melanie on Mar 31, 2008
My wonderful assistant Ariel Weinberg has supplied this response to Heather Prescott’s query:
“Murgatroyd, the Sweetheart of ‘38″ first appeared as a cartoon in a 1938 issue of VooDoo (as reported in the Feb. 18th 1938 Tech), and made frequent appearances in the magazine until her death was reported in the October 25, 1946 issue of the Tech (“Murgatroyd capat — for good, the Tech reporter was told yesterday when he ventured into the VooDoo office”).
I suspect the name was used elsewhere however. VooDoo is an MIT student humor magazine. See the MIT Archives piece for additional background: http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/voodoo/ as well as the magazine’s own webpage: http://web.mit.edu/voodoo/www/voodoo.html. (
Cheers,
Debbie Douglas