Back to School, 1922 Style

I had intended to publish this Graphical History Tour last week, but then Mikhail Gorbachev up and died, so I had to post cartoons about him instead. So here, with apologies to the British royal family for not coming up with a collection of QEII toons, is my 1922 Back to School tribute.

"Freckles and His Friends" by Merrill Blosser for NEA, Sept. 5, 1922

Freckles must have been utterly oblivious to the passage of time that summer if he somehow was completely unaware of the start of the school year. I could see him forgetting about it if he were just entering kindergarten, but he's obviously a year or two into schoolboydom if he views going to school as "Just Like Going to Jail."

From the look of things, he's getting the school year off on the wrong foot. The school bell is ringing, and he's at least a quarter mile away. Pop's was not a generation whose cars lined up for blocks dropping off and picking up their younguns at school.

"Life's Little Tragedies" by Alfred "Zere" Ablitzer in New York Evening Post, Sept. 9, 1922

Yeah, kid, go ahead and blame it on the dog.

"'Cap' Stubs" by Edwina Dumm for George Matthew Adams Service, Sept. 5, 1922

Mutts have feelings, too, you know.

"Aw―Gee Whiz" by Gaar Williams in Chicago Tribune, August 27, 1922

With the end of summer, the rest of these schoolboys, unlike Freckles McGoosey, were well aware of their impending doom. The lad in Gaar Williams's cartoon may try to hide, but he won't be able to hold his breath underwater long enough to do much but make his own self late for the bell.

"The Hardest Part" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Association, ca. August 30, 1922

As you have probably noticed, these cartoons are all about boys. Girls went to school, too, but they apparently didn't grow up to draw cartoons about it. 

"'Cap' Stubs" by Edwina Dumm for George Matthew Adams Service, Aug. 28, 1922

Even in Edwina Dunn's strip, the girls are peripheral characters — like Violet and Patty, or Susie Derkins, or Katie Franklin. (As we discussed last March, Cap, too, would also be relegated to the margins as Tippie the Dog took over the strip.)

"Another Strike Possibility" by Terry Gilkison for Autocaster, ca. August 18, 1922

Reluctant schoolboys are already a cliché in 1922, so let's turn to a cartoon that made an extra effort to be timely. Terry Gilkison references here the months-long and contentious strikes by coal miners and railway workers in his back-to-school cartoon.

By the time my generation was matriculating, teacher strikes were no longer the stuff of a kid's fanciful imagination. For a while, teachers in my school district were going on strike just about every other year. A strike during my senior year lasted nearly two months; when it was over, the district had to add several Saturdays and the entire month of June to the school year in order to meet the state-mandated minimum number of school days. (We seniors got to graduate on schedule so that those of us going to college could meet their deadlines for sending in our graduation records. Everyone else had to go to school for three more weeks.)

"The Days of Real Sport" by Clare Briggs in New York Tribune, August 17, 1922

School has not been the only option for older kids, then or now, as illustrated by this Clare Briggs cartoon. For some people, an early entry into the workforce is the right answer. Ma and Pa do not believe that Malcolm here is one of those people, and are old enough to remember a time when many kids Malcolm's age had been in the workforce for years.

(Malcolm, for that matter, is old enough to remember those days, too; even if he didn't personally know anyone in that situation.)

"The Road to Success" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, September 12, 1922

John Knott's Mr. J.H. Wisdom would give Malcolm the same advice as his parents.

And not just to boys like Freckles, Cap, and Malcolm:

"School Authorities Report..." by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Sept. 25, 1922

Now, I'm putting together something for next Saturday already, so nobody important gets to die next week, okay?

Independence Day 1922

"The Old Man Who Never Grows Old" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, July 4, 1922

It's a holiday weekend here at Bergetoons Central, and we're in the mood to take a break from the Trump Putsch, supply chain issues, monkey pox, and SCOTUS returning us to the days when men were men, women were chattel, and the environment was at the mercy of everyone who had a bunch of shit they wanted to send up a smokestack or dump in the lake.

"His 146th Birthday" by Charles Kuhn in Indianapolis News, July 4, 1922

The United States turned 146 years old on July 4, 1922, although one might quibble that Uncle Sam was actually a few years younger than that. But let's not: he was already an adult when he first appeared shortly after the War of 1812. Whether he turned 36 that year would be difficult to determine, given the ageless quality attributed to him by Grover Page and Charles Kuhn. 

"A Privilege and an Honor" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 1922

100 years ago, most cartoonists were content to put aside for a moment whatever contentious issues they were dealing with. Gustavo Bronstrup, an American-born cartoonist, chose to celebrate naturalized citizens arriving here from other countries — even as the drive to end our open-door immigration policy was gaining steam.

"The Spirit of the Day" by O.C. Chopin in San Francisco Examiner, July 4, 1922

Independence Day wasn't about to drive all unity and harmony from existence, however. As evidence, contrast O.C. Chopin's Independence Day cartoon with his opus on July 5:

"Another Declaration of Independence" by O.C. Chopin in San Francisco Examiner, July 5, 1922

John McCutcheon also thought it was time for a new Declaration of Independence:

"A Second Declaration of Independence Needed" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1922

Northern California is still a part of California, and the Harding Administration had just scored a victory in limiting the growth of naval armaments, so those Declarations of Independence are still pending. (Well, we've kind of left those 1922 arms limitations in the dustbin of history...)

"Oh For the Spirit of '76" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, July 4, 1922

Clifford Berryman brings up an issue more in the forefront of public concern, but in a hopeful way. Organized Labor was fighting back against the postwar  anti-labor practices of Big Business and the Harding administration. The national strike by United Mine Workers of America, begun in March, had turned deadly in June.

"They Seem to Have Forgotten About Us" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, July 4, 1922

W. J. Lester, owner of the Southern Illinois Coal Company in Herrin, Illinois, had originally agreed with the UMWA to observe the strike; but when the price of coal went up, he hired non-union workers to produce and ship out coal.

Enraged that the owner had disregarded their agreement, on June 21, union miners shot at strikebreakers going to work, where the mine had armed guards. When striking union members armed themselves and laid siege to the mine, the owner's guards shot and killed three union miners in an exchange of gunfire. The next day, union miners killed superintendent McDowell and 18 of 50 strikebreakers and mine guards, many of them brutally. A twentieth victim from the non-union group was later murdered, bringing the death total to 23. Ultimately, three miners and 20 non-miners were killed, including the superintendent and 19 strikebreakers.

"We Had Been So in Hopes" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, July 4, 1922

Meanwhile, railroad workers renewed their threat to go on strike as well over wage cuts mandated by the Harding administration. Union members had voted not to go on strike the previous October after the Railroad Labor Board had agreed to delay halving railroad workers' pay. But by summer, it was becoming clear that the Interstate Commerce Commission intended to go forward with those cuts sooner or later.

"Dampened" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Evening Ledger, July 3, 1922

For the time being, however, the Railroad Labor Board managed to kick the strike farther down the line.

"North Dakota Celebrates" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, July 3, 1922

Changing topics but continuing the firecracker motif, John Cassel celebrates the primary election victory of "Non-partisan League" senatorial candidate Lynn Frazier over incumbent Porter McCumber for the GOP nomination. A former governor, Frazier had been recalled from office in October, 1921 after a campaign against him by banking and industrial agriculture interests

Lynn Frazier in 1921 and California Governor Gray Davis in 2003 are the only two U.S. governors ever to be successfully recalled. Frazier, however, won election to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1941. (For a cartoon of Mr. Frazier, see my post about the Non-partisan League in July of 2020.)

"Back to the Unsafe and Insane Fourth" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 4, 1922

Nelson Harding throws everything but the Dyer anti-lynching bill (see yesterday's post) into his cartoon of stuff scaring Uncle Sam witless. I guess his Uncle Sam grew old after all.

"Still Burning" by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, July 4, 1922

If we're going to give an Independence Day award for cantankerousness and curmudgeonry, the prize goes to Fred Morgan of the Philadelphia Inquirer for taking a perfectly innocuous holiday drawing and ruining it with a Get Off My Lawn You Damn Kids caption. 

"Life's Little Tragedies" by Alfred G. "Zere" Ablitzere in New York Post, July 3, 1922

So let us end instead with a couple light-hearted Independence Day cartoons from the funny pages.

"Freckles and His Friends" by Merrill Blosser for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., July 4, 1922

Wishing you a happy, safe, sane, and curmudgeon-free Fourth, I remain,

—Your Friendly Gayborhood Cartoonist.

War Declared; Hilarity Ensues

This is kind of a Scattershotback Saturday post of 100-year-old cartoons today. Let's start with the serious stuff: Boardman Robinson illustrates suffragettes in front of the White House protesting President Woodrow Wilson's opposition to women's suffrage. Between June and November 1917, 218 protesters from 26 states were arrested and charged with "obstructing sidewalk traffic" outside the White House gates. The banner in the cartoon directly quotes a banner carried by one of the arrested women.

"Kaiser Wilson" by Boardman Robinson in The Masses, October, 1917

The German press seized upon England's arrest and imprisonment of British politician Edmund Morel, a leader of the antiwar Union of Democratic Control. He was convicted of violating the Defence of the Realm Act by sending a UDC pamphlet to a friend in Switzerland. Simplicissimus cartoonist Olaf Gulbransson here compares Morel's fate to that of French Socialist Jean Jaurès, who was actively working to head off World War I when he was assassinated on July 31, 1914 by a French nationalist.

"Der Geist Jaurès'" by Olav Gulbransson in Simplicissimus, Munich, October 16, 1917

Morel served six months in Pentonville Prison, which was six months longer than any punishment  Jaurès's assassin ever received (although the assassin eventually met a rather ignominious end in Spain during its civil war).

If the cartoons of the day are to be believed, Germany had high hopes for a peace settlement proposed by Pope Benedict XV. The proposal included freedom for Belgium, Poland and Armenia, restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France and Italian-speaking areas of Austria's empire to Italy, and negotiations for the status of Balkan states — essentially wiping out any of the Central Powers' military gains. Since England, France and the U.S. refused to negotiate with the existing governments of the Central Powers, however, Germans were pleased to be able to blame the continuation of the war on the Entente powers.

"Englands Antwort auf die Papstnote" by Thomas Theodor Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, October 16, 1917

But turning to the lighter side: as terribly, soul-crushingly awful as the Great War was, cartoonists were still able to find nuggets of humor amidst the death and devastation. This French cartoon depicts that country's warm welcome to the freshly arriving American troops.

"Spirit of Conquest" by Maurice Radiguet in Le Rire, Paris, September or October, 1917

Mademoiselle from Armentières had quite the reputation at home, as well as the one that quickly spread abroad. Do you suppose this could be the earliest appearance of cabbage patch kids, mon petit chou?

"Jardins de Guerre" by Adolphe Willette in La Baïonette, Paris, May 24, 1917

For American cartoonists, further removed from the front than their French counterparts, it was easier to make light of the war. Keeping things light was better for morale, after all.

"Hey, Mister," by R. B. Fuller in Cartoons Magazine, Chicago, October, 1917

The war made its presence felt on newspapers' comics pages in a way unparalleled in the century since. Certainly many adventure strips during World War II had their heroes fighting Nazis and "Japs," but American comic strips of the 1910's were almost exclusively of the humorous variety. Not every comic strip was suited to wartime boosterism, but it was hardly a stretch to have "Bobby Make-Believe" imagining himself battling the Huns. Other comic children put on shows or collected rags to raise funds for the troops, or engaged in other darling displays of patriotism.

"Freckles and His Friends" by Merrill Blosser for NEA, December 31, 1917

Among adult comic strip characters, even chinless Andy Gump answered the call to arms (only to be rejected as physically unfit). In Walter Allman's domestic comic strip "Doings of the Duffs," one of the Duff family members, Wilbur, was conscripted into the service.

"Doings of the Duffs" by Walter Allman, NEA, October 9, 1917

Wilbur Duff was not alone among comic characters to serve his country in the Great War, yet you don't find the denizens of Funky Winkerbean, Luann, or Dilbert volunteering to ship overseas nowadays. Racking my brain to come up with any modern comic strip characters who have gone to war, I can only think of Doonesbury, a few of whose characters who have served in Vietnam or Iraq. Of course, there's Beetle Bailey, but he has never left the relative comfort of Camp Swampy, wherever that is. (Is someone still drawing Sad Sack these days?)

If there is any cartoon that demonstrates how startling the realistic portrayal of Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe would be to the next generation of American cartoon readers, it's got to be this drawing for the cover of the Newspaper Enterprise Association's monthly bulletin to its subscribing editors, Pep.

Cover illustration by DeAlton Valentine for Pep, NEA, Cleveland, Ohio, September, 1917

Which is not to say that there was not more realistic humor about the war, but as with Sgt. Bill Mauldin in World War II, it came from cartoonists with first-hand knowledge of life in the field. By far the most famous was the British cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather. Having been promoted to the rank of Captain in the British Army before being hospitalized with shellshock and hearing loss at Ypres in 1915, Bairnsfather drew the exploits and travails of soldiers he named Old Bill, Bert and Alf for the humor weekly The Bystander.

"A Miner Success" by Bruce Bairnsfather in The Bystander, London, July, 1917

Bairnsfather garnered considerable fame despite initial protest from civilian readers to his "vulgar caricature" of the troops. His best-known cartoon, in which Old Bill counsels the soldier complaining about the miserable foxhole they share, "Well, if you knows of a better 'ole, go to it," has been borrowed as the basis for countless cartoons since. But if Old Bill could be fairly wise, Bert and Alf were not necessarily the brightest bulbs in the trench.

"A Carriage Full of Bairnsfathers" by E.T. Reed in The Bystander, London, August, 1917

Well, that's enough World War I for a while. Log in again next week for some more recent history.

So You Want to Be a Cartoonist

It's been a long, emotionally draining week. Personally, we here at Sketchback Saturday think it's time to lighten up a bit, if only for a moment.

Putting together some of these collections of 100-year-old cartoons, I've lately been scouring Cartoons Magazine from the era, enjoying the cartooning advertisement section. I wouldn't want to say anything disparaging about the K. Rickett Practical Cartoon Lessons, but I'm afraid that neither James Jordon nor Fitzgerald Nassue made a lasting name for themselves in the world of cartooning as far as I can tell.

For only a fifth of the cost of K. Rickett's Practical Cartoon Lessons, one could just purchase some cartoon ideas from the MacKay Studio in Philadelphia. Astound one's audience by turning a four-leaf clover into a bobbed hair-do, or a music stand into a rear-view of an elephant taking a bath!

The reader would be advised to act fast; there was not to be much of a future in vaudeville cartooning.

Kind of like newspaper cartooning today.

The future, we cartoonists are told, is in animation. Editorial cartoonists Ann Telnaes and Mark Fiore have moved all but exclusively from print to animation, for example; but W.L. Evans was way ahead of them.

Oh, to have lived in the days when there was a Big Demand for Comic Artists. If animation wasn't your thing, the Landon Course of Cartooning promised that Comic Series Drawing was A Growing Field:

Appearing in the lower left corner of the Landon ad, "Freckles and His Friends" was still running in the local newspaper when I grew up, although the Freckles I knew was completely different from the kid in the 1921 advertisement. He was a teenager, for one thing, nearly indistinguishable from Archie.

Freckles started out as a seven- or eight-year-old kid, and at first, cartoonist Merrill Blosser let his title character grow up; in the 1930's, Freckles was a star of his high school football team. But at that point, Freckles stopped aging; so in the 1950's, Freckles (seen here in the black sweater) was still hanging around the Shadyside malt shop:

Merrill Blosser: "Freckles and His Pals," May 19, 1954

After Merrill Blosser retired from cartooning in 1966, Henry Formhals, Blosser's assistant since 1935, continued the strip for another five years. Freckles never grew his hair long, smoked pot, or protested the war. Given his advanced years, he must have had a deferment of some sort.

But I digress. Returning to the topic at hand, here's a cartoon by a cartoonist not trying to sell aspiring cartoonists on the opportunities of cartooning a century ago:

Jim Navoni for Cartoons Magazine, June, 1916