Who Created The First Political Cartoon In America?
Father Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the United States of America, is considered to have been one of its early practitioners. In 1754, he produced a cartoon entitled “Join or Die,” which depicted a serpent that had been cut into parts to represent the American colonies.
What was America’s first political cartoon?
Benjamin Franklin’s admonition to the British colonies in America to “join or die” and his exhortation for them to band together against the French and the Native Americans is depicted in the first political cartoon to be published in an American newspaper. The cartoon is titled “Join or Die.”
Who created the political cartoon?
A continuation of Tukufu’s discussion on the development of political cartoons. Since the beginning of political opposition in the United States, political cartoons have played an important role in documenting the country’s history. The painting “Join or Die” by Benjamin Franklin, which was created in 1753, is an example of how an artist can simplify a complicated political problem into a single, striking image.
- The initial colonies are shown as a severed snake because they are doomed to extinction if they are not reunited.
- The caricature drawn by Franklin contributed to the formation of a sense of American nationhood and, in the end, fueled the war for independence.
- Political cartoonists gained popularity during the Civil War, when artist Thomas Nast created some of the most instantly recognizable images in U.S.
politics, such as Uncle Sam, the Republican elephant, and the Democratic donkey. Other notable works by Nast include the image of Abraham Lincoln as a donkey. Even in modern times, editorial cartoons continue to be a mainstay of the newspaper industry.
- But their sway is becoming less significant.
- As a form of news dissemination, they compete with television and the internet.
- Advertisers and publishers have a greater influence on the news of the day, and they have been known to remove cartoonists who have drawn attention for being controversial from their pages.
After the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, the popular comic strip “Boondocks” was pulled from various newspapers because it implied that measures enacted by the Reagan administration were a contributing factor in the formation of the Al Qaada terrorist organization.
What was the first political cartoon published in Colonial America?
For further information, see:
- “Join, or die: America’s press during the French and Indian War.” Copeland, David. “Join, or die.” Online version of Journalism History volume 24 issue 3 pages 112–23.
- “Benjamin Franklin’s graphic depictions of the British colonies in America: A study in rhetorical iconology.” Written by Lester C. Olson.18–42. Quarterly Journal of Speech, Volume 73, Number 1 (1987).
| hide v t e Benjamin Franklin | |
|---|---|
| President of Pennsylvania (1785–1788) Ambassador to France (1779–1785) Second Continental Congress (1775–1776) | |
| Founding of the United States | Join, or Die. (1754 political cartoon) Albany Plan of Union Albany Congress Hutchinson Letters Affair Committee of Secret Correspondence Committee of Five Declaration of Independence Model Treaty Franco-American alliance Treaty of Amity and Commerce Treaty of Alliance Staten Island Peace Conference 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution Libertas Americana Treaty of Paris, 1783 Delegate, 1787 Constitutional Convention Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly Postmaster General Founding Fathers |
| Inventions, other events | Franklin’s electrostatic machine Bifocals Franklin stove Glass armonica Gulf Stream exploration, naming, and chart Lightning rod Kite experiment Pay it forward Associators 111th Infantry Regiment Junto club American Philosophical Society Library Company of Philadelphia Pennsylvania Hospital Academy and College of Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia Contributionship Union Fire Company Early American currency Continental Currency dollar coin Fugio cent United States Postal Service Street lighting President, Pennsylvania Abolition Society Master, Les Neuf Sœurs Gravesite |
| Writings | Founders Online Silence Dogood letters (1722) A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain (1725) The Busy-Body columns (1729) The Pennsylvania Gazette (1729–1790) Early American publishers and printers Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732–1758) The Drinker’s Dictionary (1737) “Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress” (1745) “The Speech of Polly Baker” (1747) Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. (1751) Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1751) Birch letters (1755) The Way to Wealth (1758) Pennsylvania Chronicle (1767) Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One (1773) Proposed alliance with the Iroquois (1775) A Letter to a Royal Academy (1781) Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784) “The Morals of Chess” (1786) An Address to the Public (1789) A Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks (1789) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1771–1790, pub.1791) Bagatelles and Satires (pub.1845) Franklin as a journalist Franklin’s phonetic alphabet |
| Legacy | Franklin Court Benjamin Franklin House Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology Benjamin Franklin Parkway Benjamin Franklin National Memorial Franklin Institute awards medal Benjamin Franklin Medal Royal Society of Arts medal Depicted in The Apotheosis of Washington Treaty of Paris (1783 painting) Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky (1816 painting) Revolutionary War Door Boston statue Columbus, Ohio, statue Philadelphia statue Portland, Oregon, statue San Francisco statue Stanford University statue Washington D.C. statue Jefferson Memorial pediment In popular culture Ben and Me (1953 short) Ben Franklin in Paris (1964 musical play) 1776 (1969 musical 1972 film ) Benjamin Franklin (1974 miniseries) A More Perfect Union (1989 film) Liberty! (1997 documentary series) Liberty’s Kids (2002 animated series) Benjamin Franklin (2002 documentary series) John Adams (2008 miniseries) Sons of Liberty (2015 miniseries) Benjamin Franklin (2022 documentary) Refunding Certificate Franklin half dollar One-hundred-dollar bill Franklin silver dollar Washington–Franklin stamps other stamps Cities, counties, schools named for Franklin Franklin College, Yale University Franklin Field Mount Franklin State of Franklin Sons of Ben (Philadelphia Union) Ships named USS Franklin Ben Franklin effect |
| Related | Age of Enlightenment American Enlightenment The New-England Courant The American Museum magazine American Revolution patriots Syng inkstand |
| Family | Deborah Read (wife) William Franklin (son) Francis Franklin (son) Sarah Franklin Bache (daughter) William Franklin (grandson) Benjamin F. Bache (grandson) Louis F. Bache (grandson) Richard Bache Jr. (grandson) Andrew Harwood (great-grandson) Alexander Bache (great-grandson) Josiah Franklin (father) James Franklin (brother) Jane Mecom (sister) Mary Morrell Folger (grandmother) Peter Folger (grandfather) Richard Bache (son-in-law) Ann Smith Franklin (sister-in-law) |
| Category Commons |
Who is the most famous political cartoonist?
Thomas Nast is best known for his works satirizing politician William Magear ‘Boss’ Tweed and Tammany Hall, the Democratic political machine that Tweed led and was frequently accused of nepotism. Nast is frequently referred to as “the father of the American cartoon,” and he is most well-known for these works.
What is Thomas Nast best known for?
Thomas Nast was an American cartoonist who was most known for his attack on the political machine run by William M. Tweed in New York City in the 1870s. Nast was born on September 27, 1840, in Landau, Bavaria Palatinate, and passed away on December 7, 1902, in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
- Nast was only six years old when he first came in New York.
- After attending the National Academy of Design for his art education, he started working as a draftsman at Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper when he was 15 years old, and then at Harper’s Weekly when he was 18 years old.
- In the year 1860, he traveled to England on assignment for the New York Illustrated News.
In the same year, he traveled to Italy on assignment for the Illustrated London News and other American media to cover the insurrection of Giuseppe Garibaldi. As soon as the Civil War in the United States broke out, Thomas Nast, while working as a cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly, threw his whole support to the Union and vehemently condemned slavery.
His cartoons “After the Battle” (1862), which attacked Northerners opposed to energetic prosecution of the war, and “Emancipation” (1863), which showed the evils of slavery and the benefits of its abolition, were so effective that President Abraham Lincoln called him “our best recruiting sergeant.” Both of these cartoons were published during the American Civil War.
Nast’s cartoons during the time of Reconstruction showed President Andrew Johnson as a harsh despot and described Southerners as nasty exploiters of defenseless blacks. These depictions revealed Nast’s severe dissatisfaction in postwar politics. Many of Thomas Nast’s most powerful cartoons, such as “Tammany Tiger Loose” and “Group of Vultures Waiting for the Storm to Blow Over” (both 1871), were vicious assaults on New York’s Tammany Hall political system commanded by “Boss” Tweed.
- These cartoons were published in the same year.
- It’s likely that his drawings were one of the primary contributors to the machine’s eventual demise.
- The caricature that Nast drew of the political leader who was on the run in 1876 helped lead to Tweed’s identification and subsequent capture in Vigo, Spain.
By the year 1885, confrontations between Nast and the editors of Harper’s Weekly were becoming more common; the year 1886 saw the publication of Nast’s final cartoon for Harper’s Weekly. His contributions to other magazines grew less regular, and after virtually all of his money were wiped out by the collapse of the brokerage business Grant & Ward in 1884, he was left in a state of abject poverty.
In the year 1902, he was given the position of consul general in Guayaquil, Ecuador. His reputation, however, is based on the caricatures and political cartoons that he drew. Nast also did some painting in oil and illustrated books. From his pen emerged the Republican Party ‘s elephant, Tammany Hall’s tiger, and one of the most iconic depictions of Santa Claus .
Additionally, he is credited with making the donkey mascot of the Democratic Party popular. By subscribing to Britannica Premium, you will have access to content that is not available elsewhere. Sign Up Right Away The Members of the Editorial Board of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Michael Ray is responsible for the most current revisions and updates to this article.
When was the first cartoon published by The Independent *?
The first instance was presented in a piece that was printed in The Independent on May 20th, 1916. On June 16, 1917, The Independent also published the second cartoon that was created for their newspaper.
What were the first political cartoons?
It is essential to keep in mind that the early political cartoons drawn in the United States were cartoons. On May 9, 1754, the earliest known example of a cartoon was published in Ben Franklin’s publication The Pennsylvania Gazette. It was published as a part of an editorial that Franklin was writing in which he offered his thoughts on “the present disunited situation of the British Colonies.” On January 30, 1788, another early cartoon from the 1700s was published in the Massachusetts Centinel.
- This one dates back to that year.
- The picture, which is given the title “The Federal Superstructure,” depicts a hand assisting in the process of bringing the Massachusetts pillar to an upright posture.
- The Centinel, a publication that favored the new Constitution, made the observation that “The Pillar of the Great Federal Edifice rises daily” in one of its articles.
The piece of artwork named “Join or Die” is a woodcut that depicts a serpent that has been chopped into eight segments, each of which represents a different colonial administration. The artwork was based on the widespread belief that reuniting the pieces of a snake that had been severed in two would cause it to regain its life if it was done so before the sun set.
The drawing was quickly replicated in a number of different publications since it was so well received by the general population. The pillars that symbolize the states of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Georgia as well as the state of Connecticut are shown in the stance of “having already approved the new document.” The New York Assembly will reportedly call for a convention to approve the Constitution, according to an article that can be seen below the illustration.
Even though the visual style of early political cartoons in the United States was somewhat different from what we see now, the subject matter of all of these cartoons was, without a doubt, political. And the things that are represented in the cartoon represent something else than what is actually depicted.
| JOIN, or DIE. An early American political cartoon originally published in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper. | An early American political cartoon originally published in the Massachusetts Centinel newspaper. |
Who is the father of the American cartoon?
Thomas Nast, who worked in the United States in the decades following the American Civil War, is sometimes referred to as the “Father of the American Cartoon.” In point of fact, it is generally agreed that he is responsible for bringing both the elephant and the donkey to positions of political celebrity.
Who is the most famous cartoonist of the 1850s?
John Tenniel, the chief cartoon artist for Punch and one of the most prolific and influential cartoonists of the 1850s and 1860s, is generally regarded as having reached a level of mastery in the art of physical caricature and representation that has remained largely unchanged up until the present day.