THE CHICAGO HISTORY JOURNAL: Hell On Earth: Political Cartoonist Art Young

June 13, 2008

Hell On Earth: Political Cartoonist Art Young

In the rival cities they tell the story of the citizen of Chicago who on dying exclaimed at his first view of the next world: “After all, heaven is not so different from Chicago!” “Excuse me, some one replied, “but you are not in heaven.”
From: America of To-morrow, by Abbé Félix Klein (1911)

Art Young would have agreed with the Abbe. The above cartoon is titled "The Boodle Alderman: Each sat in his particular oven" The cartoon also says it is a "Chicago Exclusive." (Boodle is a term that means "bribe" or "corruption")It is one of a series of satirical drawings from Art Young's book, "Hell up to date: the reckless journey of R. Palasco Drant, newspaper correspondent, through the infernal regions, as reported by himself" published in 1893. (Follow the link for more of Young's hell on earth drawings.)

Arthur Henry Young (1866-1943) was born 14 January, 1866, near Orangeville, Illinois. His family moved to Monroe, Wisconsin, when he was a year old. He quit high school before graduating. After selling his first cartoon to Judge in 1883, Young moved to Chicago, where he enrolled in the Academy of Design. Young worked for the Daily Mail and the Daily News from 1884 to 1887. He created what many consider to be the definitive drawings of the Haymarket Riot (1886) during this period.

In the autumn of 1889, Young traveled to Paris and entered the Académie Julien. He was forced to return to Monroe, Wisconsin, due to poor health. He stayed in Monroe until 1892, at which time he joined the staff of the Chicago Inter Ocean. Here he produced the first daily front-page political cartoon in the Midwest. Throughout the 1890s, Young also contributed to Puck, Judge, and Life. He was one of the first artists to freelance to all three simultaneously. For Life and Puck more so than Judge, his cartoons became increasingly satirical.

(Art Young's "World of Creepers" was published in Life magazine, Nov. 14, 1907)

Young's socialist leanings began around 1910, upon his association with Greenwich Village radicals. His most notable cartoons can be found in Life, Puck, the Masses, the Liberator, the Metropolitan, and Young's own radical satire magazine, Good Morning. He crusaded against sweatshops, firetrap tenements, child labor, racial segregation, and discrimination against women, in addition to Socialism's traditional industrial and political enemies. He belonged to the vanguard of a very active left-wing movement in American arts and letters. What is perhaps most amazing about Young - considering his views were radical enough that he was tried for treason during World War I - is that he was simultaneously able to create humorous, inoffensive gag cartoons that magazines like the Saturday Evening Post eagerly and prominently published.

(The Masses, 1914)

In Young's later years he drew less, became bitter about life, and advised both young radicals and aspiring cartoonists. He died at his home in Bethel, Connecticut, on 29 December, 1943. (From: Drawing from Life, Smithsonian Institution Libraries)