New Acquisition: Judge Magazine March 1937 Featuring Surfing in Hawaii
- Marcus Maraih
- 10 January 2025

Surf Museum Hawaii (SMH) has added another rare piece to our growing ephemera collection. This one is unlike the usual suspect travel magazines of the early 1900s. Founded by a group of cartoonists out of New York, Judge magazine offered a bold and satirical look at the sociopolitical and pop-culture climate of an era spanning from 1881 to 1947.
In understanding the satire, one can forgive the first impression of the cover on the March 1937 issue. The cover features a haole husband and wife, swapping (so to speak) places with a Hawaiian kane and wahine to ride the surf of Waikiki. Upon close inspection, the Hawaiian male surfer’s face is distorted and the vacationing wife is also less defined. Meanwhile, the potbellied hubby (who looks a lot like an aged Tin Tin) confidently thrusts forward with a full featured (note the difference in her face) Polynesian beauty at his feet. It’s a commentary on the patriarchal marketing of the Hawaiian islands to American and European men of the period. It appears to be a theme that cover artist Gregor Duncan was keen to expose, as seven months later he produced this cover for For Men Only (October, 1937):

There is no surfing related content within the March 1937 issue of Judge, but the cover, satire, and history make it an important piece to have in the SMH collection. Stay tuned for more.
