In 1944, the U.S. Forest Service debuted a wildfire prevention campaign featuring a soon-to-be-familiar character named Smokey Bear. Staff artist Albert Staehle’s original version of Smokey was a realistic-looking bear with paws and sharp claws, albeit dressed in a ranger hat and blue jeans. Early campaign ads included a slogan: “Smokey Says—Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires.”
By the late 1940s, however, it was clear that Smokey needed a makeover to appeal more to children, along with a pithier catchphrase. That task fell to another Forest Service artist, Rudolph “Rudy” Wendelin, who created the Smokey Bear image we know today.
A resident of Arlington’s Bluemont neighborhood, Wendelin humanized Smokey’s features, added his name to his ranger hat and belt buckle, and traded the bear’s paws for fur-covered hands so he could grip his trademark shovel and point to say, “Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires.”
Throughout his 40-year Forest Service career, Wendelin created many different Smokey Bear images for various media, helping the mascot become a household name. In 1952, crooner Eddy Arnold even recorded a tune called “Smokey the Bear” that adults of a certain age can probably sing from memory. One series of Wendelin’s paintings shows the ursine celebrity leaning back in his chair, feet on his desk, reading through stacks of fan mail.
In 2017, an Ad Council survey found that 8 out of 10 Americans recognized the famous bear, whose image has been officially licensed to dozens of organizations and merchandisers. Imitators have emerged, too. The “Resist Bear” of the Alt National Park Service protest movement looks remarkably similar to you-know-who.
One of the artist’s three adult children, David Wendelin, says that if his father were alive today he’d likely approve. “Smokey Bear defined [my father’s] character,” he says. “He was very socially active and concerned [about] what was going on in the world up until he died.”
Local politics included. One Wendelin cartoon from 1973, published in The Northern Virginia Sun, protested the creation of I-66. The image depicted rolled-up blueprints crushing houses in the shadow of a giant gas pump.
Wendelin continued to offer cartoons and commentary to organizations like the Arlington Historical Society until his death in 2000.
“My dad was part of the golden age of advertising,” says David’s sister Elizabeth Wendelin. “Dad gave Smokey the hands to point and more facial expressions. To me, Dad gave Smokey his soul.”