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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 459 487 CS 510 704 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (84th, Washington, DC, August 5-8, 2001). History Division. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE 2001-08-00 NOTE 472p.; For other sections of the 2001 proceedings, see CS 510 705-724. PUB TYPE Collected Works Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC19 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Advertising; *Censorship; Court Litigation; Higher Education; *Journalism Education; *Journalism History; Mass Media Role; Newspapers; Presidential Campaigns (United States); Programming (Broadcast); Propaganda; Television; World War II IDENTIFIERS *Citizen Kane; Eighteenth Amendment; Japanese Relocation Camps; Kansas; New York Sun; Public Journalism; Television News; Womens Suffrage ABSTRACT The History section of the proceedings contains the following 15 selected papers: "Attacking the Messenger: The Cartoon Campaign against 'Harper's Weekly' in the Election of 1884" (Harlen Makemson); "Fact or Friction: The Research Battle behind Advertising's Creative Revolution, 1958-1972" (Patricia M. Kinneer); "Bee So Near Thereto: A History of Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States" (Thomas A. Schwartz); "'All for Each and Each for All': The Woman's Press Club of Cincinnati, 1888-1988" (Paulette D. Kilmer); "Everyone's Child: The Kathy Fiscus Story as a Defining Event in Local Television News" (Terry Anzur); "Rising and Shining: Benjamin Day and His New York 'Sun' Prior to 1836" (Susan Thompson); "Reconnecting with the Body Politic: Toward Disconnecting Muckrakers and Public Journalists" (Frank E. Fee, Jr.); "Harry S. Ashmore: On the Way to Everywhere" (Nathania K. Sawyer); "Suppression of Speech and the Press in the War for Four Freedoms: Censorship in Japanese American Assembly Camps during World War II" (Takeya Mizuno); "The 'Farmer's Wife': Creating a Sense of Community among Kansas Women" (Amy J. DeVault); "Citizen Hearst vs. 'Citizen Kane': The Battle Fought behind the Release of One of the Greatest Cinematic Pictures of All Time" (Christopher Allan Faidley); "From 'True Temperance' to the 'Tatler': Advertising Messages of Anheuser-Busch in the Early Years of Prohibition" (Margot Opdycke Lame); "'Still the Manager...in Letter and Spirit': Absentee Ownership and the 'East Oregonian'" (Jon Arakaki); "A 'Legion of Decency' for 1950s TV? The Catholic Morality Code That Didn't Happen" (Bob Pondillo); and "'London Calling?' Covert British Propaganda and News Distribution, 1948-1953" (John Jenks) . (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (84th, Washington, DC, August 5-8, 2001): History Division. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. O Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY BEST COPYAVAILABLE TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 2 Attacking the messenger: The cartoon campaign against Harper's Weekty in the Election of 1884 By Harlen Makemson PhD Student School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 4615-L Hope Valley Rd. Durham, NC 27707 E-mail: [email protected] Phone: (919) 403-1678 Fax: (919) 962-0620 Paper submitted to Assocation for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication History Division Research Panel, 2001 Annual Convention Washington, D.C. BEST COPYAVAILABLE 3 Attacking the messenger The cartoon campaign against Harper's Weekly in the Election of 1884 Abstract Scholars have asserted that pro-Republican political cartooning was ineffective during the presidential campaign of 1884, but they have not offered convincing evidence. An examination of two pro-Republican comic weeklies - The Judge and Munsey's Illustrated Weekly - suggests that the problem may have been one of focus. The purpose of this paper is to show how Republican comic weeklies spent almost as much ink discrediting Harper's Weekly - long a supporter of Republican causes but which had reused to support James Blaine in this campaign - as it did attacking Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland. During the heart of the campaign, George William Curtis, editor of Harper's, appeared in almost as many primary illustrations in The Judge as did Cleveland. Republicans, for the most part, reacted to Harper's Weekly attacks on Blaine by attacking the messenger, rather than refuting the specific charges. Republican publications and their cartoonists failed to remember who the real enemy was. Attacking the messenger The cartoon campaign against Helper's Weekly in the Election of 1884 In the late 1800s, the image became a finely sharpened weapon in the manipulation of public opinion. The power of the editorial cartoon became manifest during Reconstruction, in large part due to the caustic genius of Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, and flourished in the Gilded Age, as excesses of the period gave great ammunition to a new form of journalism in the United Statesthe weekly comic magazine. Modeled after the British publication Punch and best exemplified in this country by Puck, comic weeklies skewered political villains and social customs of the day in both word and image, most notably with lithographs in vivid color, a major technological advance. These comic weeklies were extremely popular and were "perhaps the best humor magazines ever put out in America." If the final decades of the 19th century constituted the golden age of political cartooning, the campaign of 1884 may well have been its zenith, or perhaps its nadir, depending on one's taste and political inclination.' Relentless and vicious, cartoonists against Republican candidate James G. Blaine seized on his alleged misdeeds in public office and portrayed him as, among other things, a tattooed man in a dime museum. The anti-Blaine cartoons angered, amused and, according to most accounts, swayed voters.3 Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Julian Messner, 1982), 133. The effect of cartoons on the 1884 campaign is discussed in Samuel J. Thomas, "The Tattooed Man Caricatures and the Presidential Campaign of 1884," Journal of American Culture 10, no. 4 (1987): 1-20; Richard Samuel West, "Laboring to Save Fools, The Presidential Contest of 1884 As Seen in the Pages of Puck and Judge," Target (Winter 1983): 14-20; William Murrell and Whitney Museum of American Art, A History of American Graphic Humor (New York Whitney Museum of American Art, 1938), 74-83. Cleveland won the electoral count 219-182 and edged Blaine in the popular vote by only 29,214 out of 9.7 million cast. Late in the campaign, Walt McDougall's "The Royal Feast of Belshazzar Blaine and the Money Kings" in the New York World signaled the beginning of the daily editorial cartoon and, it is argued, made the difference in the extremely dose New York vote. The cartoon, running the day after a dinner in Blaine's honor hosted by rich industrialists, showed the guests dining on 'Lobby Pudding" and "Monopoly Soup" as a poor family begged for crumbs. Paul Somers, Editorial Cartooning and Caricature: A Reference Guide, American Popular Culture Series, (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998), 11. 1 Attacking the messenger The cartoon campaign against Harper's Weekty in the Election of1884 Conversely, pro-Republican cartoonists of the period were seen, then and now, as incompetents. The British publication Pall Mall Gazette, reviewing the comic battle in the midst of the campaign, said Republican "arguments are feebly illustrated by an insignificant comic paper called the Judge. On the other side are arranged all the reputable journals ..." Many Republicans after the election said their cartoonists were ineffective in influencing the results.' What previous research has not addressed is why Republican cartooning was ineffective during the presidential campaign of 1884. The underlying assumption has been that Republican cartoonists were simply not as talented or as skilled as their Democratic-leaning counterparts. However, a closer examination of two pro- Republican comic weekliesThe Judge and Munsey's Illustrated Weeklysuggests that the problem may have been one of focus rather than artistic or rhetorical merit. The purpose of this paper is to show how Republican comic weeklies spent almost as much ink discrediting Harper's Weeklylong a supporter of Republican causes but which had refused to support Blaine in this campaignas it did attacking Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland. In their rage at a perceived abandonment by a fellow publication, Republican publications and their cartoonists failed to remembei who the real enemy was. The 1884 canvass: a nasty campaign It is difficult to imagine two candidates for president being more different than were the nominees in 1884. Blaine was one of the most successful politicians of his time, having served as Speaker of the House, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State Pall Mall Gazette, 30 Aug. 1884, p. 4 'Mark W. Summers, Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President 1884 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North