PRESIDENTS vs POLITICAL CARTOONISTS

 

I:Political Cartoonists Have Reflected (and Moved) Events, Decisions, and... History

by Rick Marschall

Politics and cartoons have not always been ingredients in an adversarial recipe. This drawing from PUCK is about a politician (publisher William Randolph Hearst) and his own cartoon characters, stars in his chain of newspapers. In 1904 he sought the Democrat Party nomination for President; he would have run against the incumbent Theodore Roosevelt. Around him are the creations of F Opper, Rudolph Dirks, James Swinnerton, and Carl Schultze.  

I recently returned from Washington DC, the Inauguration and related events, and while this will be old news to any who read this after it is archived, it will not be a news report. I was inspired, if that is the right word, to share a little history of presidents and cartoons. Campaigns and commentary by comic artists. It will run over several postings.  

Editorial cartooning, specifically politically cartooning, thrives at times of urgent public debates and vivid personalities.

This statement sounds trite or self-evident, barely a thesis except that – in a corollary of the “Great Man” theory of studying history – urgent public debates and vivid personalities sometimes are shaped and propelled by speeches, tracts… and cartoons.

The timing and the passions of the Revolutionary War, the French Revolution, the Spanish-American War, the New Deal, and various anti-war movements all mightily were influenced by cartoons and cartoonists.

Cartoons not only reflected events but have influenced history. Napoleon said that history was written by the victors – and it is just as true that our views of history often have been shaped by artists, including cartoonists.

                 

The legendary Thomas Nast, a self-caricature, sharpening his most lethal weapon, a pencil. His support of the North in the Civil War, and of President Abraham Lincoln, earned the latter's honorific, "The North's Greatest Recruiting Sergeant." On the other hand, his vicious cartoons against Democrat presidential candidate Horace Greeley helped defeat U S Grant's opponent in 1872. Greeley died only days after the election.

Much of what we think – and know; or think we know – of kings, presidents, generals, candidates, and leaders of movements, has been codified by cartoonists. Oftentimes, major figures in history have been portrayed to their detriment. Sometimes unfairly, sometimes falsely, often spot-on. No matter: our general opinions of: say, Andrew Jackson or Williams Jennings Bryan frequently are what the cartoonists said through their art.

Consider Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. Do we “know” them through their portraits? Speeches? Caricatures? Truth? Generalizations? Slander? Gossip? Facts? Cartoonists work on the blank slates of daily journalism in ink, but might as well carve in stone.

King Tut: What do we know of how he lived and loved? But his image endures. We have thousands of hours of Nixon on film, yet we remember him mostly through the cartoons of Herblock.

… Anyway, it was once so. Henry Major, a caricaturist of an earlier generation, noted that cartoonists more than occasionally were thrown in jail for what they drew. He said that later cartoonists should be arrested for what they don’t draw. If we return to our thesis – that political cartooning thrives during times of urgent debates and vivid personalities, and vice-versa – then we might well be entering a new Golden Age of political cartooning.

Time will tell, but signs are at hand. The Trump presidency, indeed the Trump phenomenon, provides an unprecedented opportunity for political cartoonists to spread their ink-stained wings as seldom before. Stand-up comedians and cable-news wiseguys have stolen a lot of cartoonists' thunder... but, really, only to the extent that artists and newspapers have weakened their platforms and surrendered their turf.

To appreciate the art form of the political cartoon, as much as to contextualize the opportunity presented by Trump, it is instructive to survey the history of political cartooning in America. We will see that the most powerful and memorable – and prescient – work has been at times when vivid personalities have predominated. Whether cartoonists have accurately or satirically recorded, or helped create, their victims, is an open question. That questions is as intractable as the chicken-or-egg conundrum.

Our job – as citizens, commentators, voters – is to appreciate and learn from this amazing art form of graphic humor, variously called “Wordless Journalism,” the “Ungentlemanly Art”: the political cartoon.

At a conference held by the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists in the mid-1970s, Meg Greenfield of the Washington Post addressed the assembled cartoonists and thanked them for providing “laughs” and “morning chuckles.” The assembled cartoonists mostly were outraged. After investing in careers as pictorial commentators they were being dismissed as court jesters. False News. By the Washington Post of all institutions (surprise, surprise in view of recent events? See the recent travails of cartoonist Ann Telnaes, chronicled in these columns) .

             

Several times in American history, there were calls to restrict and even censor, political cartoons. Sometimes these calls, by politicians of course, became legislative proposals. These bills never became laws. Spangler, Montgomery Advertiser, in the 1910s. The most serious of these efforts occured in Pennsylvania about the same time, by an aggrieved Senator Pennypacker.

It was outrageous that someone from the staff of the newspaper home of Herblock could so totally misunderstand the unique gift – yes, art form – of the political cartoon. Maybe cartoonists make their points through laughs. But that one creative tool among many others, is not the only special attribute of cartoons – there is the ideal of truth itself.

Next: The birth of American political cartoons, and the early American cartoonists Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere. 

Cartoonists Ring In New Years!!!

 NEW YEARS 

CELEBRATED 

IN THE OLD YEARS!

by Rick Marschall

Cartoonists almost congenitally embrace holidays. Comic artists are inspired by happy events, and in turn inspire their readers. Serious artists and illustrators create commemorations. In general, a job of cartoonists is to celebrate things worthy of celebration.

There is the additional allure of holidays to cartoonists. On those days the artists do not have to scratch their heads quite so much to come up with ideas!

In any (or all) events, here are some New Years themes from Old Years. I have chosen from my collection images that -- by coincidence -- not only raise the glass to the New Year, but appeared in roughly "round number" years ago (unless you are reading this as an archive post...!)

(Above) Winsor McCay, as "Silas," drew this fanciful exception to my rule here. At the end of 1907 he drew this strip of Father Time replacing the old 1907 with a baby 1908. Where did Old Man 1907 reside? In a grandfather's clock, of course! This appeared in the New York Telegram.

We will proceed chronologically. One hundred fifty years ago, the Father of American Editorial Cartooning, Thomas Nast, introduced the New Year in his short-lived magazine Nast's Almanac.

Ten years later in Puck Magazine this greeting appeared. The drawing by Friedrich Graetz, an Austrian cartoonist who worked in the US for three years, is an original in my collection.

The prolific Dwig (Clare Victor Dwiggins) created dozens of strips from the Turn of the Century into the 1950s; and many hundreds of comic postcards in the century's first decade. This was sent in 1910. 

Almost a hundred years ago, in 1920, someone received this charming New Year card drawn by the amazing cartoonist Rose O'Neill (happy-spoiler alert: A major treatment of her life and work is in the works for the imminent arrival of NEMO Magazine!)

Also from my collection (on the wall, as you can see, of the Gibson Room in my house) from one century ago -- Charles Dana Gibson drew Life's cupid (mascot of his magazine, Life) toasting the baby cupid with the sash labeled "1925." This appeared as a cover of Life, and was then inscribed to Gibson's niece. 

The lone New Years cartoon sans smiles is also from the mid-1920s, by John Held Jr. Hoping that your own celebrations do not result in headaches -- nor, in fact, may any other activities in the upcoming Twelvemonth, we wish you a...

HAPPY 

NEW 

YEAR! 

VIDEO BIOGRAPHY OF LEGENDARY POLITICAL CARTOONIST THOMAS NAST

 

'HOW SANTA CLAUS WON THE CIVIL WAR'

-- A SILLY TITLE FOR A SERIOUS PROFILE

by Rick Marschall

Two years ago I was featured in a television documentary on Thomas Nast. Fox Nation flew me and a case full of pictorial documentation to New York City, where over several days I was interviewed about the Father of American Political cartooning. 

As Christmas was a few months away -- around the corner, in TV-production time -- the producers determined that Nast's role in creating the popular image of Santa Claus would be the "hook." Somewhere along the line, possibly because me and the other guests spoke about Nast's contributions to the Northern cause in the Civil War, that conflict worked its way into the title. 

The documentary remains a decent piece on Nast's career and importance to the war effort, indeed; but also to American cartooning, his capturing of American social life, his substantial impact on politics, and, yes, his iconic design of the Santa we know today.

The taping was done at the clubhouse headquarters of the Society of Illustrators in New York City -- a perfect environment that could only have been surpassed by the Thomas Nast House museum in Morristown NJ.

Here is a production clip of the program, narrated by Brian Kilmeade, for scholars visiting Yesterday's Papers. Please consider responding by subscribing to Fox Nation (which now has a $1.99-a-month promotion) which will encourage them to produce similar programming.

Copy and paste this URL: 

https://app.box.com/s/0qfql8fiu733sg3cl03i70j1fhqhrcq9/file/1094753441781

Merry Christmas!   

 

   

Joseph Keppler, in PUCK Magazine, around 1890, made a prediction

125 Years Ago, PUCK Magazine Speculated on Canada Becoming Part of the United States...

by Rick Marschall

Canada, and the Colonies-then-USA, have been linked through the centuries as member lands of France, Spain, and Great Britain. Sometimes linked in territorial claims, sometimes squabbling over same; separated (except for Francophone lands) by the same language. Eh?

Recently as of this posting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on President-Elect Donald Trump to say hello and, by the way way, plead with the once and future president not to enact tariffs. Trump had voiced concern over trade imbalances, unfair subsidies, and especially lax border policies. Many United Statesians remember that the majority of 9-11 terrorists entered the country through Canada.

Withal, since the 1700s there has been remarkably little friction between the two countries. A few border disputes were settled by arbitration; great trade and great harmony exists and persists. As a casual analyst, I hope Canadians are happy with TV programs from the US; and down here, we have been laughing at Canadian comedians for a generation.

Also, the founder of this Web Magazine, the late and beloved John Adcock, was a native of Alberta -- another point of coincidence. Occasionally he would talk of Western provinces losing patience with the rest of Canada, and hearing whispers of Secession.

So it might not be untoward to recall in this post a classic cartoon from one of the times in history that Secession -- even a full-country merger with the United States -- was in the news.

Several times in Puck Magazine its founder and chief political cartoonist Joseph Keppler speculated (approvingly) on Canada becoming part of the United States. Other Puck cartoonists -- indeed, other cartoonists like Thomas Nast; and many politicians of the "Manifest Destiny" stripe -- cast hungry friendly eyes on the prospect. Canadians seldom shared the "dream"; the British Crown even less frequently.

In the early 1890s, Keppler drew an elaborate cartoon on the topic. At the center of the cartoon (as often a theme was carried) the magazine's mascot Puck proposes a toast. How a punchbowl wound up in the snowy wilderness is not explained, but Uncle Sam and his distaff, iconic companion Miss Columbia happily embrace as children -- each labeled to represent state of the US -- dance around the fire.

In the icy shadows, the figure representing Canada looks on with a combination of disdain and jealousy. Huddled around her are children bearing labels of the Canadian provinces. Out in the cold, they are ill-clad, ill-housed, ill-fed. Not a subtle point, Kep; but probably more charitable than Donald Trump's answer to Justin Trudeau's prediction that Canada's economy would be ruined by US tariffs: "Just become America's 51st state and become a Governor instead of Prime Minister."

     

F. OPPER'S THANKSGIVING DILEMMA

To be a comic artist, 

thankful for ONE new idea! 

by Rick Marschall

The great Frederick Burr Opper was a mainstay of the comic-art staff of Puck Magazine when he drew this cover cartoon in 1881. In his future, encomia like "the Mark Twain of American Cartooning" (in fact he actually would illustrate Twain's work) and "Dean of America's Cartoonists" awaited.. 

He would draw for Puck for two decades; he illustrated many books besides Twain's; he mastered social cartoons and political cartoons; he created the classic comic strip characters Happy Hooligan; Alphonse and Gaston; Maud the Mule and many others; and he codified many of the conventions of the comic-strip art form of which he was a pioneer.

When he drew this cartoon he was not yet 25 years old but already a star on Puck's staff; an illustrator for Leslie's Weekly; and an illustrator of several children's books. 

You would think such a fertile mind would have problem handling an assignment for a cover cartoon, especially on an "evergreen" topic like Thanksgiving. Yet he depicted himself writhing in mental anguish on the floor his studio, bereft of ideas after being "told to get up 'something new' about Thanksgiving." In his studio are sketches and submissions -- all rudely rejected by his editor for being old or predictable or "already done by Thomas Nast in 1834"! 

Inside jokes, course. Opper was a concept-machine his whole career. So here he lifted the curtain for readers and shared one new twist, after all, on a Thanksgiving subject. Let us give thanks too for this giant of American cartooning.

The Usual Christmas Pantomime,

THOMAS NAST
❦

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

Nast's Almanac 
Harper & Brothers 
1874

❦

New biography of Thomas Nast (1840-1902)

[1] Thomas Nast, posing in the 1870s.

by Richard Samuel West

Fiona Deans Halloran, author of this new biography of Nast begins her book this way:

Thomas Nast enjoyed the knowing wink. To his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, he told a version of his early life. Another version, more complete but less charming, lay within the reach of any knowing reader. Between the two lay not only Nast’s experiences, insofar as they can be reconstructed, but also his lingering discomfort with the world that produced him.

This is right on target, except that it would have been just as correct without the adjective ‘early.’ The author understands that Paine in 1904 created an entertaining promotion, rather than an accurate biography, of the man who may always be regarded as America’s greatest political cartoonist. It would fall from this understanding then that we need once and for all a detailed and rich recounting of Nast’s great life, one that parses the story that has been handed down, separates fact from fiction, and finally gives us the real man, with all his strengths and weaknesses.

[2] The new biography, front cover.

Fiona Deans Halloran, 2012, Thomas Nast; The Father of Modern Political Cartoons; A Biography, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 366 pp., hardback with dustjacket, $35, ISBN 978-0-8078-3587-6

But those who come to this biography without much knowledge of Nast hoping to immerse themselves in Nast’s life as he lived it will find themselves scratching their heads. This book by Halloran is not so much a biography as a series of meditations on various chapters in Nast’s life, wherein the author chooses an emblematic incident or cartoon to use to discuss an entire phase of Nast’s life.

[3] Harper’s Weekly, Dec. 5, 1863 — ‘Thanksgiving-Day. The Union Altar.’

So, this is not the book we need, but rather the book Halloran has chosen to write. Fair enough. It cannot be denied that Halloran is a strong writer. The book is well-written. Moreover, the author is an impressive researcher and appears to have investigated all of the important repositories of Nast correspondence and secondary sources. Regretfully this impressive foundational work has not resulted in a reliable narrative. An error-free book is, of course, a great rarity. This new Nast biography is no exception. For example, The countries of origin for the two prize-fighters John Heenan and Tom Sayers are reversed, saying Heenan was English and Sayers American (p.47), though the author does correct herself later.

[4] Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, since Nr.1, Vol. 1, Dec. 15, 1855.

More troubling are the many misconceptions and imprecisions in the book. For example, Nast’s drawing ‘Compromise with the South’ is described as ‘a hammer blow for Lincoln and against peace’ (p.59). Not true: it was a hammer blow against a rebel peace, which meant the restoration of slavery, a big difference. The author introduces another misconception when she compares Nast’s work to that of Adalbert Volck’s, the Baltimore dentist who was a Southern sympathizer. His importance is vastly overstated with: ‘There is every reason to think that [Volck’s] cartoons were available in the South’ (p.66). Actually, there is every reason to think the opposite: that hardly anyone in the South was aware of Volck’s work during the Civil War because no evidence has been found of it — nothing in the printed press, nothing in letters. Certainly there was a small group of Baltimoreans who were familiar with his drawings and probably an even smaller group in the South that was exposed to errant copies of his cartoons, but it is hard to imagine those who knew of Volck’s work at the time numbered more than a hundred.

[5] Harper’s Weekly, Sep. 3, 1864 — Compromise with the South. Dedicated to the Chicago Convention.

Also, in this book terms of printing technologies and periodical history are used loosely. For example, a reference to ‘images in newspapers’ (p.23), implies that daily newspapers of the 1850s and 60s were illustrated, when in fact they were not. Or a reference like ‘Frank Leslie’s and papers like it’ (p.23) at a time — the mid-1850s — when there were no other papers like it, excepting perhaps Ballou’s Pictorial which, though illustrated, was not a news magazine and therefore not a competitor of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

[6] Harper’s Weekly, Nov. 3, 1866 — King Andy I. How He Will Look, What He Will Do.  

The author contends that people cut pictures out of the illustrated weeklies to pin on their walls and cites as proof of this that Frank Leslie’s would occasionally issue a warning on its cover page ‘open before cutting.’ (p.294) People surely did clip engravings they liked but Leslie’s admonition had nothing to do with that. Instead, the paper arrived in people’s hands uncut, that is as a single huge sheet of paper folded over and over. It was customary to run a letter opener along the folds in order to be able to leaf through the publication. The paper merely wanted readers to know that some of the images were so large within the issue that they ran through the folds and therefore would be cut in half if the issue was razored thoughtlessly.

[7] Harper’s Weekly, Sept. 19, 1868 — “Lead Us Not Into Temptation.”

And there are the constant references to Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper as Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News (a conflation I suppose of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and the New York Illustrated News). Similarly, Harper’s Weekly is almost always refered to as simply Harper’s, which is a confusing short-hand because Harper’s Monthly was just as important and just as successful during this period as was the weekly. Etcetera.

[8] Harper’s Weekly, Sept. 5, 1868 — “This is a White Man’s Government.” 

Due to the paucity of the record the first chapter on Nast’s childhood is highly speculative. In contrast to Nast’s surely unreliable sunny version of his childhood, this new biography posits a dark and threatening one, with some thug on every street corner waiting to beat up the pudgy little German boy. Well, contrary to popular mythology the streets of antebellum New York were not lurking with danger. There is every reason to believe that Nast the boy would have melted right into the teeming landscape along with all of the thousands of men, women, and children going about their daily business.

[9] Harper’s Weekly, June 10, 1871 — Under The Thumb. 

Next comes the introduction of the Edwards family, among whom Nast would find his wife Sarah. To illuminate the Edwards household the book focuses on their relationship with the Edwards family cousin James Parton and his wife Fanny Fern. It seems to me the author gets this all wrong. Like the suggestion that the Edwards were parochial and small minded in their rejection of Fanny Fern.

[10] Harper’s Weekly, Oct. 21, 1871 — The Only Thing They Respect or Fear.

Fanny, for her part, was a progressive, strong-willed, talent — the highest paid woman writer of her day. But she was also deeply suspicious, jealous, and ill-tempered. She was, in fact, not a very nice person. Disliking her was not so much a sign of a rejection of a liberated woman as it was the rejection of a manipulative and unhappy person. While Sarah the mother is accused of hypocrisy, it is not pointed out that Sarah Edwards, senior, the matriarch of the Edwards household, was herself strong-willed and a successful business woman who supported her family while her older self-effacing husband amused himself with half occupations that amounted to little more than excuses to go somewhere each day. The Edwards were a remarkable family of smart independent-minded women. Nast knew he was lucky when he won the junior Sarah’s heart; it is arguably the most fortunate event of Nast’s life.

[11] Harper’s Weekly, Sept. 23, 1871 — A Group of Vultures Waiting for the Storm to “Blow Over”—“Let Us Prey.”

The chapters that follow have similar problems. Stating that Nast wasn’t a ‘political’ cartoonist during the war as the term is conventionally understood, simply ignores the scores of political cartoons he drew for the New York Illustrated News, Phunny Phellow and even Harper’s Weekly during this period. In fact, it disposes of the hundreds of cartoons that Nast drew for Phunny Phellow throughout the 1860s in a single paragraph. In the chapter on Nast’s later career the focus is on the admittedly important work he did for Nast’s Weekly in 1892-93, but the mountain of work he did for Time (1889-90), America (1889-90), the Illustrated American (1890-95), Collier’s Once-A-Week (1890-94), and other lesser journals is ignored.

[12] Harper’s Weekly, Nov. 11, 1871 — The Tammany Tiger Loose – “What are you going to do about it?”

The chapter on Tweed blithely retells the incident in which Nast is offered $500,000 by the Tweed Ring to study in Europe. Surely this story would have been broadcast during the campaign against Tweed, when Harper’s Weekly was throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the New York boss in an effort to prove his criminality. The truth is, the public had to wait thirty-plus years for it to be told, when all the principals were dead, making it a classic example of something to be recounted only with a heavy warning attached to it.

Furthermore, it is unfortunate that the publisher of Thomas Nast; The Father of Modern Political Cartoons chose to reproduce much of the artist’s work that illustrates this book in proportions so small that it cannot be appreciated. This practice seems to me to be contradictory — displaying a fundamental lack of respect for work that the author is trying to draw attention to.

[13] Harper’s Weekly, Dec. 30, 1871, Santa Claus’s Mail.

Halloran’s best chapter focuses on Nast’s work during the campaign of 1872. It succeeds in part because it covers such a short period of time. The delineation of and meditation on Nast’s evolving relationship with Curtis treated against a backdrop of the political events of the year makes for compelling and persuasive reading. This polished essay amid a multitude of meandering meditations only reminds us of how good a book this might have been. Alas, this new biography must be approached with great skepticism and a firm grasp of Nast’s story so the reader himself can discern the good that is here from the bad.

[14] Harper’s Weekly, Sept. 30, 1871 — The American River Ganges. The Priests and the Children.

A personal presentation of the book by Fiona Deans Halloran given to The Filson Historical Society on March 12, 2013 — 38 minutes long — is HERE. A radio interview — intro at 03:00 and start at 05:00 mins. — can be heard HERE. 

[15] Harper’s Weekly, April 13, 1872 — The Republic is Not Ungrateful.

•¡•

Richard Samuel West’s latest book, Iconoclast in Ink; The Political Cartoons of Jay N. “Ding” Darling, can be purchased HERE.

Thomas Nast’s Greeley Lampoons

    

by E.M. Sanchez-Saavedra

TWO cartoons from Harper’s Weekly by Thomas Nast from the 1872 presidential election, when poor old Horace ran against incumbent U.S. Grant.

Nast always lampooned Horace Greeley as an insufferable know-it-all, his pockets jammed with pamphlets entitled ‘WHAT I KNOW ABOUT…’ His running mate was a nonentity named Benjamin Gratz Brown, who is always portrayed as a tag pinned to Greeley’s coat tails, or a small boy running after him with a small placard.

[1872] Harper’s Weekly cartoon by Thomas Nast, ‘We are on the home stretch,’ with parodied Tribune logo, November 2.

One cartoon parodies the likely front page of Greeley’s New-York Tribune for the day after Election Day, November 5, 1872. (It appeared a few days earlier.) The played-out candidate is being carried home on a litter by two of his less-respectable Tammany supporters. The masthead contrasts a prosperous Republican economy under Grant with a barren desert (a lampoon on Greeley’s ‘Go west, young man…’) of Democratic ruins.

The cartoon was eerily prophetic — worn out by the arduous campaign, Greeley would die on November 29.

[1872] Harper’s Weekly cartoon by Thomas Nast, ‘Let us clasp hands over the bloody chasm,’ September 21.

The picture in the other cartoon shows Greeley attempting to ‘clasp hands over the bloody chasm,’ a phrase that came back to haunt him. In his coat pocket is a pamphlet entitled “WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SHAKING HANDS OVER THE BLOODIEST OF CHASMS BY H.G.” This stark image of Andersonville Prison inflamed the anti-reconciliation sentiments of Grant’s supporters (who ‘waved the bloody shirt’) and ridiculed Greeley’s efforts to forgive the former Confederate states.

•¡•

America’s First Color Newspaper Supplement (1892)

1 [1892] Cover of the first issue of  
The Inter Ocean Illustrated Supplement, 
 ‘Grover Cleveland,’ June 23.

by Richard Samuel West

Comic strip historians credit H.H. Kohlsaat as the grandfather of the Sunday comic supplement. Though he was not involved in the launch of the Sunday comic supplement, his brainchild — The Inter Ocean Illustrated Supplement — inspired it. Kohlsaat was in his late forties when he bought a controlling interest in the Chicago based Inter Ocean newspaper in 1891. The son of German and English immigrants, he had made his money in the bakery trade. As a life-long Republican, he wanted to use his wealth to influence national affairs and, especially, to push the political prospects of William McKinley of Ohio, who had recently lost his House seat but was maneuvering to run for governor of his home state and had his eye on the presidency.

2 [1892] Explanatory article in the first issue, 
‘An American Color Bearer,’ June 23.

Prior to taking control of The Inter Ocean in Chicago Kolhsaat had traveled to Europe where he learned that the widely read Paris daily Le Petit Journal was issuing an illustrated weekly supplement in color, something he had never seen before. Sure, he was familiar with Puck and Judge and Chicago’s Light, all of whom sported full color lithographs in each weekly issue, but this newspaper supplement was different — its color was produced mechanically on a perfecting press, a press that prints on both sides of the paper at once — which made it more efficient and less expensive than chromolithography. Kohlsaat was intrigued by the supplement and the printing process. He sought out the inventor of the press, one of the owners of the Journal, Hippolyte Maranoni, and ordered one for the offices of The Inter Ocean.

3-4 [1892] Top: June 23, ‘The Democratic 
Convention Wigwam.’ Bottom: September 4. 
‘Let Uncle Sam be the Arbitrator,’ 
illustrated by Art Young.

On Thursday, June 23, 1892, Kohlsaat launched The Inter Ocean Illustrated Supplement, an eight page tabloid sporting a full color front and back cover, with news features, fiction, and miscellany filling up the black and white interior. It was the first color newspaper Supplement issued in America. In the early issues, the color was a bit grainy and pallid. The illustrations were prosaic, mainly portraits of men in the news, street scenes, or buildings, usually drawn by Charles O. Jones of the Inter Ocean art department. In September of ’92, however, the Illustrated Supplement took on renewed vigor.

5-6 [1892] Left: October 16. ‘Hon. John C. Spooner,’ 
cover illustrated by Art Young. 
Right: October 22, ‘Rip van Winkle Dazzled by 
the World’s Fair,’ illustrated by Thomas Nast.

Art Young, a Midwesterner who had come to Chicago in 1884 to study at the arts student league, had jumped from one Chicago daily to another during the latter half of the 1880s. After a stint in Paris, he returned to his adopted city and began working for the Inter Ocean at the beginning of 1892. He was the paper’s daily political cartoonist. With the September 4 issue, he began contributing political cartoons to the back covers of the Illustrated Supplement and then caricature portraits to the front covers.

7-8 [1892] Left: October 30, ‘Defeat,’ 
cover illustrated by Art Young. 
Right: October 30, JOHN BULL – 
“I say, Uncle Sam, how you have grown. 
Is it PROTECTION?” U.S. – “Well, 
I should smile.” Illustrated by Thomas Nast.

In October, during the homestretch of the 1892 presidential campaign, he was joined briefly by Thomas Nast, usually with Young drawing the cover art and Nast contributing a cartoon to the back.  Nast had come to Chicago at Kohlsaat’s request to judge a contest to select the best graphic representation of the city of Chicago. From then on, his work appeared sporadically in the pages of The Inter Ocean. (In 1894, Kohlsaat commissioned Nast to paint what has become his best known oil painting, “Peace in Union” which depicts Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Kolhsaat paid Nast $10,000 for the painting and then donated it to his hometown library in Galena, Illinois, also the hometown of Ulysses S. Grant.)

9-10 [1893] Left: January 28 cover, ‘Blaine.’ 
Right: March 5, ‘Another Hand Takes the 
Reins of Government,’ illustrated by Art Young.

Of course the big event in Chicago during this period was the World’s Columbian Exposition, which though originally scheduled for 1892, was delayed a year and ran from May to October of 1893. From June 1892 through April 1893, the Illustrated Supplement almost always accompanied the Sunday paper, but in a few instances it was issued on another day instead. With the advent of the Fair, the Illustrated Supplement stepped up publication to twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. Young continued as the main artist for the supplement with assistance from another art department staffer named Williamson. In July, The Inter Ocean hired Charles Saalburg, formerly of the San Francisco Wasp, to head the art department; he also became a major contributor to the Illustrated Supplement. Saalburg’s polished work was a nice compliment to Young’s homegrown efforts and Williamson’s illustrations.

11-12 [1893] Left: April 16, ‘A Few Old Sketches 
Re-Touched,’ illustrated by Thomas Nast. 
Right: April 30 front cover, ‘I Will be Queen 
of the May,’ illustrated by Thomas Nast.

The  Illustrated Supplement created something of a sensation in the newspaper publishing world. In May of 1893, The World in New York, inspired by Kohlsaat’s innovation, brought out the first color comic supplement, using the same press model Kohlsaat had imported from Europe. After the fair ended in October, the Illustrated Supplement returned to a Sunday-only publishing schedule. Though it was downsized at the end of the year, it contained the same amount of color because an interior doublespread was added. 

13-15 [1893] Left: July 16 front cover, ‘He Rules 
the Roost,’ illustrated by Charles Saalburg. 
Centre: September 6 front cover, ‘Maine 
State Building at the World’s Fair.’ 
Right: September 10 front cover, ‘Ohio’s 
Strong Man,’ illustrated by Charles Saalburg.

Kohlsaat, Young, and Saalburg all left The Inter Ocean in 1894. Kohlsaat sold out his interest in the paper and moved on to other projects (though he bought back the Inter Ocean nearly twenty years later). Young eventually made his way to New York and enjoyed fifty more active years in the profession. At Pulitzer’s invitation, Saalburg became head of The World’s art department in New York. He went on to a long career in pictorial journalism and was a highly respected printing arts technician, eventually even patenting several color printing processes. 

16-17 [1893] Left: November 21 cover, 
‘Our Uncle Grover – As Usual, the Inter 
Ocean Was Right.’ Right: December 17 cover, 
‘The Song That Did (Not) Reach His Heart.’ 
Both illustrated by Charles Saalburg.

No one has determined the exact date that the Illustrated Supplement was discontinued. I have an Inter Ocean Illustrated Supplement from 1900, but it does not contain any original art (just reprinted cartoons from Judge) and I have been unable to determine whether or not the title was published continuously during the intervening years. Reprinted here is a generous sampling of cover art from this pioneering publication.

18 [1894] January 7, Front plus back-cover sheet, 

‘The Modern Paul and Virginia’ and ‘Looking 

Backward,’ both illustrated by Charles Saalburg. 

Please note that the final image reads 1893 on the 

title bar of the issue itself, but it’s actually from 

1894 (the issue was misdated when published).

Richard West’s new book ‘Iconoclast in Ink; The Political Cartoons of Jay N. “Ding” Darling’ can be purchased HERE.