Political Cartoons

I drew these as a project for a couple of U.S. history classes in college. In each case, I have assigned a year to indicate when a cartoon would have been relevant, had it appeared at that time.
These have been "modified to fit your screen." You may click on any to open one actual size (or scalable).

1880

People were all about appearances, whether they could afford it or not.


1885

Henry Ward Beecher was an early proponent of the notion that the Bible and evolution could both be true.


1890

Unfairly administered "literacy tests" were given in an attempt to exclude blacks from the voting process.


1910

Based on a statement in the text, something like "President Taft pulled to the right while former president Roosevelt and other Republican leaders pulled to the left."


1911

Christian Scientists denied the existence of the physical world.


1930

Alvin Kelly was the original "flagpole sitter." (Male character in cartoon is based on Burr Shafer's J. Wesley Smith.)


1938

FDR's alphabet soup.


1954

Senator McCarthy's hearings to identify communists among us sounded like a witch hunt to me.


1973

No meaning here. Just a silly limerick.


1975

This one must have been based on something the professor said in class, because he called it "a personal dig at the teacher."

Did I mention that said teacher was my father?