The Power of Political Cartoons

One semester I had the honor of lecturing at the University of Tennessee for the second half of a Western Civilization class. Towards the end of the semester, I decided to do something that I had never really done before, for any lecture: I chose to organize my lecture on World War II around certain images from a fascinating book, Dr. Seuss Goes to War. This book was edited by Richard H. Minear and was published in 2001. If you are not aware of this work, perhaps a little background info is in order. Theodore Geisel, before he became known as Dr. Seuss, was a cartooonist for the New York magazine PM, in the years leading up to American involvement in the Second World War. The cartoons reproduced in the book cover not only the main figures involved but also themes like American Isolationism and Japanese Internment.

When I first bought the book, it was a little disconcerting to look at these political cartoons that had obviously been sketched by the same hand that made "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Horton Hears a Who," and yet feature Adolf Hitler as a mermaid or Mussolini as a poor, helpless figure. These two images, pictured below , were found on this website, which was put together by Dr. Minear.

With such great material, that quickly became my favorite lecture - and, was the one most commented on by my students.

That has since got me thinking about other ways that cartoons could be used to help students visualize previous debates. I found the following image in the material from a previous TAH grant:

This cartoon, taken from the London newspaper Punch, not only shows what was going on in America in 1856 (the date of publication), but how Europeans viewed the conflict as well. This image came from here.

Harper's published numerous wonderful cartoons during the Civil War and Reconstruction years that would stimulate and interest the students. There are also many Revolutionary cartoons that could be used for Era 2. Has anyone out there made use of images such as these for lectures or class projects? Or any TAH teachers willing to post ideas on the Wiki in connection to this?

Posted by Jason Mead - Tuesday, 04/19/2011, 01:49 PM - Comments -