I am trying to understand the big picture of a topic dear to me, and by “dear,” I mean close. So close in fact, I may not be able to see the big picture, but I am trying. The subject is women in cartooning, more specifically at The New Yorker. While it is enlightening to study the women who came before me, who broke into the magazine as visual humorists when it was uncommon for women to even consider a career in humor, I want to know more. But what I am looking for is context in terms of priviledge and race: overwhelmingly the women who drew cartoons for The New Yorker from 1925-2021 were and are white women.
We live in what was and still is a racist country, so women of color have been excluded (until 2004 , Emily Richards Hopkins was the first Black woman cartoonist at The New Yorker, as far as is known). I plan look back on history and try to further delve into the times to see who else was creating cartoons. I know of Jacki Ormes, considered the first Black woman cartoonist in strip cartooning. She never appeared in The New Yorker; as a comic strip writer and artist, she was extremely successful. I wonder if she was the only Black woman creating in the years she was active, 1930’s,40’s,50’s.
The thing with humor is it can be very divisive. For Black people during that time, humor was published in media outlets owned and run by Blacks. It was for Black consumption only—not to mention the obvious fact that corporate, white media would not hire or print Black created work. It was also for Black newspapers and magazines because what was drawn was often subversive, and in part created (I assume) as a coping mechanism. Laughing at oppressors is a way to bond an oppressed group: i.e. we are all in this together. The only way I can understand this as a white person is its as if women cartoonists in the 1930’s drew about being abused, or botched abortions, menstration or corsets or not being able to wear pants or get a job in one’s chosen field. It wasn’t done, it was humor that was too critical of the patriarchy; corporate, white, male media didn’t want to hear it. And dictated that no one else wanted to hear it.
Unlike Black communities in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Detroit in those decades, I am not aware that women (of any racial or ethnic group) had publications of their own to draw subversive cartoons. Not until the 1970’s, when there was underground community of cartoonists that included some (white) women. White women were “allowed” to draw and were published in smaller numbers in major newspapers, to a degree; as long as they stayed within the boundaries of the patriarchy. They could draw about being women, but they had to be on subjects that perpetuated the submission of women. The Suffrage Movement was different, there were some white women pushing the limits of the patriarchy with cartoons that were pro-suffrage.
But who were the women of color who were trying to break into cartooning in general? Or that got published and have been forgotten? Are there any others?
More to come on this. As a paid subscriber, you get insight (lucky you!) into my thinking on current projects. I am trying to write an essay that I hope will be published by someone when the book comes out! I welcome your input. Thanks for your support.