I Saw These People Today
And cartoons about colleges
I was on the campus of Vassar College today, there to get a key to a temporary office within the Media Studies Department. I’m going to be in-residence for the year, doing research and maybe giving a lecture and organizing a panel. While waiting, I drew those two walking. I used my finger on my iPhone because I didn’t have my iPad with me!
The New Yorker published a number of Vassar cartoons in the early years. Here are a few. The artists and editors loved to make fun of their demographic, educated, well-to-do youth.
In the history of the magazine, cartoonists have made fun of these well-known colleges and universities, I list a few below. There may be others, but these are what I found (with the help of Michael Maslin!) in a quick search.
Yale: 49
Vassar: 5
Columbia: 12
Bryn Mawr: 6
Harvard: 40
Princeton 28
This is perhaps one of my favorites, about Yale by Helen Hokinson from 1942
:
That’s all for today, I hope you have a lovely Friday evening! I’m exhausted!
Norte Dame, where I went to graduate school, has also attracted its share of mockery. Back in the day “Domer,” a reference to the fabled Golden Dome, was a derisive term for the residents of what was then a privileged enclave within the working-class city of South Bend, Indiana.
Wonderful