We offer the travel exhibit Campaigns and Cartoons: The Role of Caricature in Political Persuasion from the collection of Julian and Sue Ridlen.
Thirty-six original sketches and published political cartoons examine the evolution of the art form and the lives of noted artists who produced and popularized such symbols as Uncle Sam, Miss Colombia, and even the donkey and the elephant party icons.
The exhibit focuses upon an era during which the political cartoon played a unique role in political persuasion. It represents a time when technological advancement in the print media resulted in a vastly expanded readership, and a period devoid of conflicting and competing forms of media communication that mark the electronic age.
The opinion of the publishers was, from time-to-time, injected in the form of caricature. In the post-Civil War years, the political cartoon came of age. Led by Thomas Nast and his unrelenting attack in Harper’s Weekly upon the corrupt Democratic “Boss” Tweed and Tammany Hall, and by Nast’s efforts to reelect President Ulysses S. Grant, cartooning quickly proved to be a powerful tool in shaping public opinion.
Nast, at Harper’s, and Matthew Morgan, at Leslie’s, were soon joined by Joseph Keppler, Bernard Gillam and a host of others, drawing in a lighter, more satirical vein for newspapers and in an explosion of color for Puck and Judge magazines that came of age with the development of chromolithography.
Contents
General Requirements
Exhibit Rental Fees
Supporting Materials
For more information on available dates, please contact VP of Curatorship & Exhibition, Jennifer Capps, at 317.631.1888 or jcapps@bhpsite.org.
Due to inclement weather, the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site will be closed for tours on Wednesday, January 25, 2023.
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