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Reading Cartoons for History

Modern cartoons are bright, colourful and amusing images developed around television performances for yellow people, crude children and colourful animals with wacky senses of humour. These are the creatures that can get away with everything normal human beings dream of but never actually contemplate trying; the characters who can be killed daily but always return to form as though nothing had happened. Petty rivalries can be resolved with the deft wielding of a frying pan to the back of the head. Psychologically we might see them offering insight to the human ego, but how might they also be used historically to investigate situations, people and places of a specific time period?

This study addresses the value of the visual image, and particularly the cartoon in terms of providing sources of information for the modern historian. More specifically it will consider cartoons of the Great War and the information they can provide of the mood of the day, political and public motivations and insights into the way that such material may be understood.  Firstly how cartoons are read by the modern historian needs to be evaluated; what specifically will they look at and how? What then can be learnt from the images and the manner in which they have been read?

When looking at history, ordinarily analysis of dates and events are considered where reference is made to primary and secondary texts, but what if the image becomes the primary factor? Is the text as relevant when only provided as a way to describe what the image has to offer? Fundamentally, when historians use cartoon images they serve to support points made and are simply described to serve the historian, while little surrounding information is offered. Where did the image come from who was it made by, what motivated their work, all of these are additional elements of cartoon work that need to be considered when addressing the visual material historically.

How then might the historian looking at carton material read the evidence with which they are presented? There are different ways certainly, but on the surface the historian needs to look first at the content of the image and the icons that are presented there. If there is a baby in a basket, that can be easily recognised and identified as exactly that. For W. J. T. Mitchell this is the icon level of reading an image and seeing what is recognisable. The next layer of understanding in Mitchell’s view then is a broader description of what else can be seen around it and how the iconography might be described to help illuminate more of the image’s purpose. The basket holding the baby may be left alone, or be floating in a sea, which can offer another level of identification to help illuminate it meaning. Mitchell’s third level of iconology then, is considering the wider picture of where said baby is located, whether the baby has been aged, or has a particular personality’s face been supplemented for the child’s. Each of these layers helps the historian to better understand an image and place it into the wider context of historical value.

Within the historiography of visual studies, Peter Burke similarly identifies elements of iconology as a manner for researching and identifying visual sources. However, within his Eyewitnessing he also promotes the value of said visual material as the ‘eyewitnesses’ to the moment when they were made. A cartoon as such needs to be considered for who, what, where, when and why specific features are depicted. Who is in the picture, and of the people identified, why have they been chosen? What are they doing in the image and how might that also be important? Where and when can be considered on different levels; where is the image situated, what time frame does it depict, but also where and when was it made and published and by whom? Why, can be asked of each element thus far; who was depicted and why, what is shown and why, where and when does the image represent and why. Additionally where and when was it made and published and why, was there supplementary purpose behind its presentation, was there political motivation or military or was it made critically of decisions in society that the artist or publisher did not approve of? All such questions need much further research in order to develop the appropriate responses.

The ‘who, what, where, when, and why’ approach can be particularly useful when approaching images that are remarkably similar, or more often than not in the cartoon world, have been reused by the same artist or requisitioned by another. Examples of this can include works by Poy (Percy Feason) who produced two images that on the surface are identical. These images are ‘Push and Go Man’, and ‘Found Him at Last’ both of which depict David Lloyd-George facing himself in a mirror and pointing at his own reflection. There are only tiny alternations made by the artist to the text that is embedded within the image and its outgoing title. These small alterations offer the historian insight into how they can be read and provide clues to the dates of their construction. The first is related to the policy of ‘Push and go’ of 1915 that Lloyd-George headed which is stipulated within the title, and the second was made in response to his taking over as prime minister around New Year 1917. The clues to these features come from the accompanying text such as the title for ‘Push and go’, or in the caption beneath that states ‘David (after a long hunt for a leader who will lead): “Found him at last.”’

Far more can be learnt by reading cartoon images at a deeper level. For the historian so many cartoons are only preserved within scrapbooks that occasionally indicate the year of publication and little more, leaving much information as guesswork. Nonetheless, features of a publication’s bias can be inferred by the way they approach particular politicians, or public attitudes of the day through the cartoons offered. Within the Daily Mail and Evening News, an entire scheme of Lloyd-George and Asquith cartoons made by Poy can be seen that present the publications’ bias as they move away from Asquith and rapidly towards Lloyd-George. The politicians start 1914 at similar sizes and with equal power, but by the end of 1916 Asquith is visibly smaller than Lloyd-George, and is seen to be more foolish in his representation. Yet in 1919 following the war, Asquith returns larger than life and fills a train cabin with all of his political knowledge with which Lloyd-George and Bonar-Law cannot compete.

Other public attitudes may also be inferred by images in Punch from June 1916, for example, which presents a woman literally watering the cows with a watering can. This image is presented within Punch a predominantly male directed publication in 1916, and as such, the views of women in male roles can be seen, as it is quite clear that the woman has misinterpreted the task she has been asked to fulfil. While contrastingly in the Daily Mirror of October 1917 women are presented on equal footing. The Mirror was a newspaper originally designed for women as its readership, and as such, it can become clearer why the attitudes are better balanced. The male character still comments of the women in the distance that ‘they'll never be any use as workers - the time they waste talk, talk, talking!’ Whilst in the second part of the image the same women chatting now in the foreground comment on the farmer: ‘And the way these men waste time, my dear, leaning over a wall doing absolutely nothing!’ Thus, the balance is better struck, and publication attitudes and biases may be inferred.

Furthermore, the mood of the day may also be viewed within cartoons when celebrations or commiserations are offered visually. The sense of victory or sorrow likewise appear represented by allegories of a woman dressed, traditionally as a Greco-Roman Goddess, she has the power to offer emotive salutes to soldiers going away in 1914 and 15, or celebration to those returning victorious in 1918. These allegorical emotive characters were used by all cartoonists throughout the war, as well as long before and since which suggest an ongoing agency that the cartoonist has to illustrate the world in a manner that we wish to see it, yet not recognise within ourselves. Having the ability to read cartoons appropriately for future historians may give them insight to us in the twenty-first century by way yellow and crude egotistical characters much as we can read more detail of the twentieth century in their cartoons.

Wider reading:

  • Burke, Peter, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence, (New York: Cornell, 2001).
  • Gombrich. E. H, Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art, 2nd edn. (London: Phaidon, 1971).
  • Mitchell. W. J. T, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, (London, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1986).
  • Press, Charles, The Political Cartoon, (London, Toronto: Associate University, 1981).

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