Roundup: Political Cartoons, Past and Present

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Double Take 'Toons: 1912 The Issues, NPR, January 4, 2012

In 1912 the expansion of democratic rights was key to most progressives, and women's suffrage was on the ballot in a number of states including Ohio where Donahy celebrated the struggle. Ending the wrongs perpetrated by monopolistic "trusts" was something Democrats Republicans, Socialists and W. A Rogers agreed on. >>>

Kimberly Primicerio, "Southington Historical Society draws up plan for cartoonist," Record Journal, December 29, 2011

SOUTHINGTON - Members of the Southington Historical Society have a large task ahead of them. In the coming months, they'll look through more than 40 years' worth of editorial cartoons that document significant political events and everyday activities in town. >>>

"No justification for blasting Nast," Asbury Park Press, December 19, 2011

Thomas Nast, one of this year’s nominees for the New Jersey Hall of Fame, is widely recognized as the “Father of the American Cartoon.” His editorial drawings in the 1800s exhibited a broad social conscience, with anti-slavery and anti-segregation themes. He championed better treatment of Native Americans and Asian immigrants. His work is even credited with spawning the classic depictions of Santa Claus and Uncle Sam still with us today.

That’s certainly a Hall of Fame-worthy resume. But that hasn’t stopped several legislators from calling for Nast to be removed from consideration because of what they believe to be bigoted representations of Irish and Catholics. >>>

"This Month's Best Political Cartoons," US News and World Report, January 4, 2012 >>>

"Year in Cartoons," Washington Post, December 9, 2011

The Washington Post’s picks for the best editorial cartoons of 2011. >>>

Ye Complicated Cartoons of Yesteryear

Randall Stephens

Political cartoons of today are quite unlike those of previous decades, and very unlike those of previous centuries. (Caveat: This is just me speaking as the armchair amateur.) Quite a few op-ed cartoons that run in Newsweek, the Globe, the New York Times and elsewhere are easy enough to figure out at a glance. Many a cartoonist makes his/her case with a visual pun and a on-liner. Look at quite a few prints from the postwar era to the present and you might note the grace and simplicity of the style and the clarity of meaning. (CLICK the detail of the cartoon to enlarge this famous 1956 Herblock cartoon.)

Not so with 18th and 19th century political and social satires. A tangle of text bubbles, symbols, and, in the case of 18th- and early 19th-century cartoons, gutter vulgarities crowd the page. It is fun to look at these antique prints that fed off political battles and showcased the personality clashes of the day. In my classes we spend quite a bit of time unraveling the meaning of various satirical etchings and lithographs. (Finding the dog urinating on something in an 18th century political cartoon is a like a Where's Waldo game.) And note the typically bizarre sexual quality of the devil in the print below.

So, here's "A political, anatomical, satirical, lecture on heads and no heads; as exhibited at St. J--ms's 1766" from the Library of Congress. (CLICK the image to enlarge.) And the description from the LOC site runs as follows:

Print shows the Earl of Bute holding up a bust of William Pitt as the starting point of his lecture on "Heads and No Heads"; on a table before him and on a shelf to the left are several busts identified by number with corresponding descriptions in the printed caption. A woman assistant, on the left, says "I hand them in" and the devil, on the right holding a burning candle in one hand and a candlesnuffer in the other, says "I hand them off", two extinguished candles sit on the table. Nine men form the audience in the foreground, each utters a comment, such as, "Good Lord deliver us", "A good Exhibition this", "Yes, the Characters are well drawn", and "My, all Birds of a Feather".

Hmmm. . . . A send-up of types? The accompanying text is a thicket. This one is still a real head-scratcher for me! Chris Beneke? Maura Farrelly? John Fea? A paleocartoonologist? Some enlightenment?

Clifford K. Berryman, Herblock, and More On-line

Randall Stephens

The political cartoon. At its best, sublime. A staple of the history classroom.

Over one hundred Clifford K. Berryman (1869-1949) political cartoons can be viewed and downloaded at the National Archives' Clifford K. Berryman Political Cartoon Collection. (I see that this has been on-line since 2008. New to me, though.) Berryman's lifelike political cartoons work great in courses on 20th century history:

The Center for Legislative Archives holds approximately 2,600 original pen-and-ink drawings by cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman in the U.S. Senate Collection. Berryman was one of Washington's best-known political cartoonists in the first half of the 20th century. Berryman drew for the Washington Post from 1890 until 1907, and then for the Washington Evening Star from 1907 until his death in 1949. Over one hundred of Berryman's cartoons are available for on-line viewing through the Archival Research Catalog by using the keyword Berryman.

As Berryman road off into the sunset, another Washington cartoonist was coming of age. Herb Block, "Herblock," (1909-2001) had a fast, bold line style. Nixon was a favorite target. Herblock's NYT obit noted: "He started drawing Nixon, who was usually depicted as shifty and grizzled, in 1948. Sometimes Nixon appeared as a vulture, other times as an undertaker, always as a man ready to benefit from the failure of others. But Mr. Block said he took no pleasure from the fact that the disgraced president was a cartoonist's dream. 'I didn't enjoy it,' he said, 'I really wanted him out.'" See the 2003 Library of Congress site, Herblock's History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium, for an excellent survey of his work and for a number of medium to high resolution cartoons.

For earlier matieral, see Harpweek's World of Thomas Nast site; look for satirical prints from Puck Magazine, Harper's Weekly, and Frank Leslie's Illustrated on the Library of Congress Prints/Photos database; type "satirical" into the Beinecke Rare Books and MS Library search engine; or query the British Museums on-line archives for George Cruikshank, Thomas Rowlandson, Honoré Daumier, and others.