BECOMING MODERN: AMERICA IN THE 1920S

PRIMARY SOURCE COLLECTION

*

* National Humanities Center: AMERICA IN CLASS,

® 2012: americainclass.org/. Title font “The Twenties” (TestarossaNF) courtesy of Nick’s Fonts at FontSpace. Complete

image credits at americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/imagecredits.htm.

“The Cloud”

The Atlanta Constitution, January 19, 1919

“The Big Red Apple”

Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1923

HE WENTIES T T IN POLITICAL CARTOONS

Eight political cartoons on the Red Scare are

presented in this collection. Published in main-

stream newspapers, they reflect the postwar

anxiety fueled by anarchist bombings, nationwide

labor strikes, radical activists, Communists in

unions and liberal groups, and the murderous

Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917. Americans

wondered: Was a Communist-inspired revolu-

tion imminent in America? Could it happen here?

To analyze a political cartoon, consider its:

CONTENT. First, basically describe what is drawn in

the cartoon (without referring to the labels). What is

depicted? What is happening?

CONTEXT. Consider the timing. What is happening

in national and world events at the time of the cartoon?

Check the date: what occurred in the days and weeks

before the cartoon appeared?

LABELS. Read each label; look for labels that are not

apparent at first, and for other written content in the

cartoon.

SYMBOLS. Name the symbols in the cartoons. What

do they mean? How do they convey the cartoon’s

meaning?

TITLE. Study the title. Is it a statement, question,

exclamation? Does it employ a well-known phrase,

e.g., slang, song lyric, movie title, radio show, political

or product slogan? How does it encapsulate and

enhance the cartoonist’s point?

TONE. Identify the tone of the cartoon. Is it satirical,

comic, tragic, ironic, condemning, quizzical, imploring?

What adjective describes the feeling of the cartoon?

How do the visual elements in the drawing align with

its tone?

POINT. Put it all together. What is the cartoonist’s

point?

QUESTIONS

As evidenced in the cartoons, what attitudes and

anxieties dominated the period of the Red Scare?

What solutions, safeguards, and built-in remedies

were portrayed by the cartoonists?

RED SCARE THE

National Humanities Center Political Cartoons of the 1920s: The Red Scare 2

“The Cloud!”

The Atlanta Constitution, January 19, 1919 Cartoonist: Lewis Crumley Gregg

Anarchism. Bolshevism. U.S. Europe. Lightning bolts—Murder, Arson, Plunder, Rapine [pillage].

Bolshevik caricature: Russian fur hat, ragged beard, burly facial characteristics, bomb with lit fuse.

(The commenting turtle was a characteristic feature of Gregg’s cartoons.)

On the day preceding this cartoon, the conference forging the World War One peace treaty convened near Paris,

France. During the month of January, the brutal Russian Civil War expanded west and east, and a Communist uprising

in Germany was suppressed.

Reproduced by permission of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Digital image courtesy of ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

National Humanities Center Political Cartoons of the 1920s: The Red Scare 3

“UNANIMOUS”

Chicago Tribune, February 18, 1919 Cartoonist: Carey Orr

Bolshevik Agitator. I.W.W. Life of Trotsky. Labor. Farmer. Press. Legislator. Public. Capital [business/finance].

I.W.W.: International Workers of the World.

Leon Trotsky: a Bolshevik leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

In February 1919, fear of Communist/Bolshevik agitation in the U.S. was heightened by the nationally covered Seattle

general strike, the Senate Overman Committee investigation into Bolshevik activity in the U.S., and daily coverage of

the escalatingl civil war in Bolshevik Russia and of Communist uprisings in other European nations.

Reproduced by permission of the Chicago Tribune. Digital image courtesy of ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

National Humanities Center Political Cartoons of the 1920s: The Red Scare 4

“Bolshevik: ‘Join Us! See How I’ve Bettered My Condition in Less than Two Years!’”

Life, March 27, 1919 Cartoonist: Harry Grant Dart

American worker: worker’s hat, pipe, thin moustache, “full dinner pail,” strong confident stance.

Russian worker: unkempt beard and hair, ragged clothing, starvation apparent in eyes.

Since the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russia had been embroiled in civil war and ethnic conflict.

Search in process for copyright holder of Life (estate of Henry T. Rockwell) or of the illustrations of Harry Grant Dart). Digital image from original publication.

National Humanities Center Political Cartoons of the 1920s: The Red Scare 5

“The Result of the Debauch”

Des Moines Register [Iowa], June 7, 1919 Cartoonist: Jay N. “Ding” Darling

League of Nations. I.W.W. Debt. Suspicion. Labor Problems. War. Four Years War. Soviets. Reds. Bolshevism. International Hatred. Spartacans. Non-Partisan League.

Debauch: Overindulgence in a sensual pleasure (in this case, a drunken binge, i.e., the war and its aftermath).

Spartacans: German Communists who supported an unsuccessful workers’ uprising in Berlin in January 1919.

Non-Partisan League: Populist farmers’ organization in North Dakota that elected a legislature in 1918 which enacted a program of state-run banks and grain storage facilities to counter the corporate dominance of big railroads and flour companies; opposed as a radical socialist group and voted out of office in the early 1920s.

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National Humanities Center Political Cartoons of the 1920s: The Red Scare 6

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National Humanities Center Political Cartoons of the 1920s: The Red Scare 7

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National Humanities Center Political Cartoons of the 1920s: The Red Scare 8

“The Nice Red Apple”

Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1923 Cartoonist: Edmund Gale

U.S.A. Russia. Bolshevism. Liberalism (apple offered by the tempting snake). Skulls.

In April 1923 came warnings from President Harding, AFL leader Samuel Gompers, and others “to denounce those forms of

destructive radicalism which, in the name of liberalism, are propagandizing in the United States to alter the structure of this

government and to destroy its military system.” They warned that liberal ideas such as pacifism and social welfare legislation were

advocated by “genuine Americans whose patriotism is unimpeachable” yet were unwitting victims of Communist propaganda spread

to weaken American resistance to radical ideas.

Robert Armstrong, ““Leaders Warn of Radicalism / Spread of Moscow-Directed Doctrine Is Denounced . . . People Shown

Communism in Liberalism Cloak,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1923 [quoted text from Times article, not leaders’ speeches]

Reproduced by permission of the Los Angeles Times. Digital image courtesy of ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

National Humanities Center Political Cartoons of the 1920s: The Red Scare 9

“Sour Grapes”

Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1926 Cartoonist: Morris [George Matthew Adams Newspaper Service]

In the Aesop fable of the fox and the grapes, the thirsty fox fails in repeated attempts to jump and grasp the grapes, a failure he dismisses by insisting the grapes were probably sour.

In the mid 1920s as Joseph Stalin cemented his control of Communist Russia, he argued that Russia’s socialist revolution could succeed without concurrent worldwide workers’ uprisings—a reversal of basic Marxist-Leninist theory. Later he insisted that the revised position reflected original party policy

Copyright holder of Adams Newspaper Service content unidentified; search in process. Digital image courtesy of ProQuest Historical Newspapers.