Cartooning Texas, 1890-1990

by Robert A. Calvert
Professor of History
Texas A&M University

Abridged (with the author’s permission) from Cartooning Texas, Texas A&M University Press, 1992

For a political cartoon to be successful, it must create an intellectual and emotional response in the reader. It has to be about a topic that is extremely important to a widespread cross-section of the reading public. The key to the success of the cartoonists whose works are featured in this exhibit is their ability to address the critical issues of the day incisively and concisely.

This exhibit is essentially Texas history in the raw. It is a compilation of the visual commentaries of journalists about the issues and people most on the mind of Texans for a period of one hundred years (1890-1990). Whether the exhibit is a cartoon history of Texas or a history of Texas cartooning is irrelevant. One of the most remarkable aspects of this one hundred years is the continuity of the subject matters that have dominated the interests of Texans and therefore their political cartoons. 

The cartoons and politics of every decade are centered on hotly contested, controversial, and colorful political campaigns—usually for the governor’s chair. In this exhibit you will meet a fascinating array of flamboyant politicians, ranging from the controversial Governor Hogg, to the incomparable Ma and Pa Ferguson, to the inexorable Governor Shivers and the remarkable Pappy O’Daniel. Between 1890 and 1990 Texas also contributed unforgettable politicians to the national scene, including Vice-President John Nance Garner, Vice-President and President Lyndon Baines Johnson, longtime Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, Treasury Secretary John Connally, Vice-President and President George H. W. Bush, citizen Ross Perot, and others who engaged in political and ideological crusade after crusade.  

The issues that have dominated Texas life have remained remarkably constant over these one hundred years. First and foremost, Texas has been deeply touched by economic issues. Not surprisingly, therefore, in every decade you will see (that is the beauty of a cartoon—you actually see the subject matter) the agitation of Texans over taxes, government spending, government corruption, the price of goods and services (and labor). Moreover, the prices of cotton and oil, as well as the solvency and efficiency of railroads and banks are of constant interest over time. You will be struck at the applicability of many old cartoons to the concerns of today. 

Another strain of continuity concerns the theme of people’s rights. The cartoonists have consistently chronicled civil rights (African-American, Hispanic, and immigrant), workers’ rights (including the consequences of strikes), voting rights, and women’s rights. Additional issues relating to public schools, including financing, curriculum, and sports, have been in the public’s mind and eye through this period. These issues, like economic and political ones, have remained constant themes of public concern from decade to decade.  

In sum, this kaleidoscopic history of Texas provides wonderful proof of the teaching that there is nothing new under the sun. Perhaps it also will allow us to read today’s political cartoons with the wisdom that we have survived and prospered despite the fact that we have already experienced the crises that we again face today. 

1894–1910

The 1890s were years of remarkable ferment in politics, the economy, and even in journalism. The decade was not always the Gay Nineties, especially to those caught in a cruel depression, suffering crises in the farm economy, or promoting a revolutionary political movement, like Populism. Likewise, the 1890s were a period of ferment in journalism, nationally and in Texas, which was the source of several humorous journals. These included Texas Siftings, Texas Sandwich, and Rolling Stone. The drawing style of the cartoonists is what observers might today, in hindsight, charitably call naïve and enthusiastic.  

The first decade of the 1900s was marked by the Galveston hurricane and the eruption of Spindletop. The wildcat oil boom around Beaumont flooded an underdeveloped region with a horde of newcomers who scarcely had community interests at heart. Rising to the occasion, the cartooning journalists intensified the ferocity of ridicule in general while raising the industry’s standards for this specialized profession. They targeted the wrangling between “old politics” and the Progressive movement, colorful personalities, and such issues as woman suffrage, child labor laws, and railroad rate legislation.  

1910–1920

In this decade the concerns of Texas were increasingly of national significance.  Disputes with Mexico—from immigration problems to violent border raids to the Mexican government’s perennial instability—garnered nationwide attention. So did Governor James E. “Pa” Ferguson, a rough-speaking, self-styled commoner, whose programs presaged those of Huey Long in Louisiana in the next generation. Political cartoons graced the front pages with increasing frequency—and not merely because the issues were hotter. Artistic standards were rising, and the cartoonists were becoming influential commentators. 

1920–1940

This was a memorable period for cartooning. The Pulitzer Prize for cartooning was inaugurated, granting the political cartoon distinction as much in society at large as in the journalistic profession. There was a nationwide explosion of interest in social commentary and satire. In Texas, the oil business was booming, and the population was expanding because of workers attracted to the fields and factories. Cultural upheavals abounded also, especially the campaign to bar the teaching of Darwinism in the schools.  

In the 1930s, when boom had turned to bust and dust, every nuance of the news took on a paramount importance to everyday people. People demanded their news, whether the topic was the general worsening of economic fortunes, gathering war clouds overseas, or the close-to-home Dust Bowl crisis that sent masses of hard-pressed rural Oklahomans migrating westward. This popular obsession with information placed a special responsibility on the political cartoonists as interpreters and commentators. The profession gained intense momentum The Texas History Movies cartoon strip became an institution that figured in the education of three generations of Texans. 

1940–1954

Political cartooning was jolted in lasting ways by our sudden entry into World War II after Pearl Harbor. When the debate over foreign policy shifted abruptly to rallies for morale and victory, Texas cartoonists found that the momentous subjects were actually local issues. Defense plants cropped up across the Lone Star State, and oil and agriculture took on added importance. One cartoonist, Jack Howells Ficklen, drew one of the war’s most beloved strips, “You’re in the Army Now.” Another cartoonist, who signed his work “Jack O’Diamonds,” worked for the short-livedSpectator in Austin from 1945–1948. He went on to represent Houston in the U.S. House of Representatives. His name was Robert C. Eckhardt. 

1954–1960

The aftermath of World War II demonstrated that America could not avoid a prominent role in international affairs; its only choice was to play the role well or poorly. Faced with sudden expansionism on the part of the Soviet Union and mingled legitimate and hysterical fears of Communist infiltration in the United States, Texas cartooning took on an increasingly heated tone in the 1950s. Bill McClanahan embodied an aggressive conservatism in his cartoons for the Dallas Morning News. His philosophy was: “An editorial cartoon should attack, not boost.”He confined his boosterism to the realm of sports.

1960–1970

On November 22, 1963, the nation was stunned by the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. Texas would from then on be known as the state in which our thirty-fifth president was murdered. Kennedy came to the state because its traditional conservatism had taken a swing to the right, and Lyndon Baines Johnson, his Vice-President, was out of favor with conservative elements. The assassination resulted, ironically, in LBJ’s accession to the White House. Johnson loomed large on the national horizon during his presidency. He initiated and supported a variety of liberal social programs while escalating a war that was opposed by liberal elements. When he became the issue of political debate, he took himself out of politics. He was succeeded by Richard M. Nixon. The decade ended in extreme turbulence and a changing of the guard for cartoonists. The times, they were a-changin’. 

1970–1980

In 1972, Texas voters turned against many longtime officeholders in the wake of another state government scandal—the Sharpstown Bank Scandal. Cartoonists heightened people’s dissatisfaction with politicians, especially when the Speaker of the House appointed his friends to investigate and they found no wrongdoing among the accused. Cartoonists urged reform in the legislature. The result was 72 new members in the House and 15 in the Senate. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor were tainted by the scandal and defeated for public office. In 1978, an off-shore drilling contractor spent $7 million of his own money to defeat the Democratic candidate by a narrow margin. Texas was now beginning to be seen as a two-party state. Also during the 1970s, Etta Hulme, one of the first female editorial cartoonists in the nation, found a home at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

1980–1988

In 1980 Ben Sargent, a cartoonist at the Austin American-Statesman, produced the Texas Statehouse Blues, which one reviewer called the most “imaginative collection of cartoons ever produced.” But while Sargent was changing the look of cartooning, oil prices were changing the face of Texas. Oil and gas provided 28 percent of state revenue in 1981, but only 12 percent by 1989. Alaska replaced Texas as the leading producer of crude oil in the United States. Energy related businesses had lost nearly 300,000 jobs by the end of the decade. The schools were in trouble, too, and efforts to reform education were entangled in the controversy over “no pass-no play,” which challenged the primacy of football in Texas public education.  Sometimes the legislature and other times the governor achieved notoriety for what they did not do to help Texas. 

1988–1990

It has been argued that the Texas economy once rested on the three-legged stool of agriculture, defense, and oil. The collapse of the oil industry in the mid-1980s and the problems of farmers throughout the decade heightened the importance of defense. In 1989 Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney recommended that several military bases, including two in Texas, be shut down, making it unlikely that the state can ever again rely on defense as a pillar of its economy. And in the late 1980s, financial institutions went bankrupt with depressing regularity. In December 1977, Texas had 328 savings and loan associations. In 1991, there existed only 131—and 51 of these were in federal conservatorship. The gubernatorial campaign of 1990 was marked by personal attacks that seemed excessive even by Texas standards. In the end, the Republican candidate, Clayton Williams, shot himself in the foot one time too often, and Texas gained its first truly independent woman governor.  

Recommended Readings 

Brooks, C., ed. Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company (published annually). 

Forman, Maury, and Robert A. Calvert. Cartooning Texas. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993. 

Heitzmann, W. R.  50 Political Cartoons for Teaching U.S. History. Portland, ME: J. Weston Walch, 1975. 

Nevins, A., and F. Weitenkampf. A Century of Political Cartoons. New York: Charles Scribner Sons, 1944.