SMGP-0917 Disney Beechcraft Busy Bee Award of Merit document and Patch
$350.00
1 in stock
Description
A scarce and desirable homefront item that is a must for the Disney collector! Very difficult to find the patch with the award document. The paper document is about 7×11″ and in fantastic condition with light wear and soiling. The patch is absolutely mint.
Beech Aircraft Corporation
The “Beechcraft Busy Bee” was created for the Beech Aircraft Corporation in 1942, and represents the first Disney emblem created for a wartime contractor during World War II. This mascot was one of the most extensively used Disney designs created during the war.
The insignia featured a bee with four hands holding various tools, positioned on a field of blueprint paper shaped in the form of a beech tree leaf, and was used in the company’s employee incentive program.
The design was publicly announced on the front cover of the May 15, 1942, issue of the company’s employee newsletter, The Beech Log. The accompanying two-page article stated in part:
“[T]he Beechcraft Busy Bee will serve as a badge of merit and honor to be awarded to Beech employees of any rank or station. To qualify . . . a Beechcrafter must have demonstrated by performance, the qualities of high efficiency, interest in his (or her) work and in training for further advancement, cheerful cooperation with others, and the constant determination to ‘Kill ‘em with Production.’”
The company undertook a massive publicity campaign that focused on their new logo, stating “advertising now under way . . . will be international in scope, reaching many millions of persons throughout South America, Canada, and wherever else the mails are still open, as well as the entire United States.” Ads featuring the emblem were scheduled to appear in Time, Business Week, Newsweek, Fortune, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as foreign publications including the Spanish language aviation magazine Revista Aerea and the Portuguese edition of Reader’s Digest.
A short story in the Disney employee newsletter Dispatch From Disney’s reported:
“The Beechcraft Busy Bee . . . is a decorative note of good cheer . . . serving a similar purpose is the Beechcraft song composed by Studio musicians. Prepared for use with training films, it has been declared the organization’s official theme music and is used as marching song by Guards and Guardettes.”
An article in the June 19, 1942, edition of The Beech Log described how the company’s new logo was used on an employee Award of Merit:
“Many hundreds of “Award of Merit” certificates . . . are now being lettered with the names of Beechcrafters who have qualified as the first winners of the Beechcraft Busy Bee emblem. Judging has been practically completed in all departments for the initial awards and the lists of super-active “Busy Bees,” as determined by foremen and union committeemen, or department heads, have been turned in to the company’s joint labor-management Production Drive Committee of the War Production Board.”
The Beechcraft Busy Bee logo was featured on many items including the Award of Merit, a cloisonné men’s pin and women’s broach, an employee handbook, badge, calendar, several different patches, and several staff newsletters.
The design was created by Disney artist Van Kaufman in April 1942. The pair of items shown in this post are from my collection.
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