In observation of Memorial Day Weekend, today's Graphical History Tour resurrects a handful of Memorial Day cartoons from 100 years ago.
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| "To-Day" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, May 30, 1924 |
Memorial Day, as I'm sure you know, was established to commemorate the soldiers killed in the U.S. Civil War. By 1924, that war was almost 60 years in the past, and few of that war's generation were still around.
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| "A Message from Arlington" by Jim Ring in Washington (DC) Times, May 30, 1924 |
So it is hardly surprising that cartoonists such as Jim Ring chose to honor the fallen of the nation's most recent armed conflict.
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| "Through the Curtains of Time" by Dennis McCarthy in Fort Worth Record, May 30, 1924 |
Memorial Day now honors the dead from all wars, police actions, and those undeclared hostilities we get into nowadays, since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I'm not quite sure why Dennis McCarthy chose to overlook American soldiers who died in the final year of World War I; perhaps he was referencing the years in which the nation entered into conflict.
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| "Precious Memories" by Winsor McCay for Star Company, May 30, 1924 |
The tombstones in Winsor McCay's cartoon mark the years of the Declaration of Independence, the start of the Civil and Spanish-American Wars, and the end of World War I. The tombstone for the Mexican-American War must be hidden behind Miss Columbia.
This, by the way, was the only cartoon I came across featuring Miss Columbia. In earlier decades, she, rather than the more political, even comical Uncle Sam, was the go-to figure for cartoonists wishing to portray the nation's sorrow.
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| "Lest We Who Inherit Its Blessings Forget..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Tribune, May 30, 1924 |
But as the 20th Century progressed, Uncle Sam became the preferred figure to represent the United States on solemn occasions.
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| "A Real Tribute..." by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1924 |
John McCutcheon used Memorial Day to comment on current events: the House had just voted adequate defense shipbuilding funds to achieve the "5-5-3 ratio" of U.S., Great Britain, and Japan's navies stipulated by post-war treaty. Coming as this did after passage of the Japanese Exclusion Act, relations between the two Pacific powers had soured greatly.
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| "From Bunker Hill to Metz" by Wilbert Holloway in Pittsburgh Courier, May 31, 1924 |
If a 1924 cartoon acknowledges that Black soldiers fought and died in America's wars, you know it was by a Black cartoonist drawing for a newspaper with a Black readership base. Wilbert Louie Holloway, 1899-1969, came to Pittsburgh from Indiana. His first cartoons appeared on the Courier's editorial page in October, 1923 and became a regular feature. With the May 31, 1924 issue, his name (as "W.T. Holloway") was added to the paper's masthead as Staff Artist. Launching a weekly comic strip, "Sunny Boy Sam" in 1928, Holloway remained on the Courier staff until his death.
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| "100 Per Cent Americans" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, May 30, 1924 |
Roy James's attempt to advocate for interracial brotherhood of comrades in arms, I think, falls a bit flat — at least by today's standards. Nice try, though.
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| "This Day We Dedicate to the Memory of Those Who Have Passed" by Harold Wahl in Sacramento Bee, May 30, 1924 |
Returning to our focus on Memorial Day, Harold Wahl allows the reader to project whatever race or nationality you like (but one belief system) onto his silhouetted figures.
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