The Cartoons of Evansville's Karl Kae Knecht
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To a large extent we understand the 18th century through Hogarth and Gillray’s eyes. From a world before photography, it’s Hogarth’s vision of London that has endured, with the savage slapstick of its greater and meaner thoroughfares, its strutting rakes, syphilitic whores, gin-sodden murderers, squashed cats and gallows. Likewise, if we have a visual awareness of Britain’s statesmen from the tail end of that century, it’s probably Gillray’s versions of them: the freckly beanpole Pitt or the spherical Charles James Fox.129
Stylistically, they have had a profound influence. In the words of Martin Rowson on another occasion, “The standard template for political cartoons—the caricaturing of real people into an alternative, shape-shifted reality, where they act out a narrative of the cartoonist’s devising—was concreted in by Gillray 230 years ago and has remained completely unchanged ever since.”130
Thomas Rowlandson (1756/7–1827), influenced by Hogarth and an almost exact contemporary of Gillray, has been credited with creating the first real cartoon character (“Dr. Syntax”) and being the first to consistently use speech balloons and horizontal strips of boxed images—the “two stock conventions of the strip cartoon.”131 His work was less political, and less moralizing, than those of Gillray and Hogarth—according to Amelia Rauser, rather than offering political solutions or social criticism, he merely portrayed Georgian society “with bemused detachment.” That is not to say his work was not unsettling; his “Dinners Drest in the Neatest Manner” from 1811, for example, is easily one of the most grotesque and disgusting depictions of food preparation ever created.132
Top: Charles Philipon’s depiction of the French King as a Pear Face, 1831–32; bottom: Honoré Daumier’s “Gargantua” from 1832. Public domain.
George Cruikshank (1792–1878) is the last of this remarkable set of savage British cartoonists; he knew Gillray, inherited his art table and even finished some of his uncompleted pieces.133 His brilliant work was both political and social, weighing in on contemporary party politics but also contributing to the cause of abstinence from alcohol. He might be best known for this temperance campaigning or as an illustrator of the works of Charles Dickens, but his political images are still extremely powerful. He famously depicted Prime Minister William Pitt as “A Toadstool Upon a Dung-hill” in 1791, and in 1819, he produced the astonishing “Poor Bull and His Burden,” a “vitriolic satire on taxation, militarism, and civil and ecclesiastical corruption,” depicting a bleeding and muzzled British bull crushed by a hierarchy consisting of tax collectors, politicians, the military, the judiciary, the church, royal courtiers and, at the very top, the Crown.134 In many ways, it is a cartoon that resonates with today’s political critiques from both left and right, with its powerful condemnation of entitled and interconnected elites oppressing a noble but silenced majority. Cruikshank is also notable because his work sometimes appeared not just as prints but also in pamphlets, where his political images appeared alongside political writing—“the direct precursors of Philipon’s Parisian journals.” The story now moves to Paris; after 1830, “the cartoon centre of gravity shifted from England to France.” And at the center of all that were Charles Philipon and Honoré Daumier.135
Philipon (1800–1861) founded the magazine La Caricature in 1830 and employed a stable of satirical artists. They went after many targets, but most famously, they attacked the political corruption of the day, with their animus centered on the king, Louis-Philippe. In the words of David Kerr, Philipon “cultivated a network of talented artists who worked almost exclusively for him and who, under his leadership, waged an unprecedented and relentless war of attrition against Louis-Philippe and the July Monarchy [with] [t]he corrosive wit of their intensely violent imagery.”136 Philipon is most well known for his rendering of the King’s (admittedly pear-shaped) head as a pear—the French word for pear also having the alternate meaning of “fathead.” On being prosecuted, he famously produced a series of drawings in court in which the king’s head gradually, almost imperceptibly, became a pear, and he asked, “Can I help it if His Majesty’s face is like a pear?” He was prosecuted multiple times, fined heavily and sentenced to a year in prison.137 Of all the cartoonists who worked with Philipon, by far the most influential was Honoré Daumier (1808–1879)—“one of the greatest social critics that ever held a brush”138—and of all his artworks, by far the most infamous is Gargantua from 1832, which depicts the king, massive, repulsive and bloated, sitting on a commode. He “defecates rewards to the tiny ministers of his government gathered beneath the chair. Other ministers collect tribute from the destitute and crippled populace of Paris and then march up a gangplank to feed the baskets of wealth to the ravenous king. The king’s body—obese, passive and immobilized by gluttony—is the agent of his own physical corruption.” Daumier was arrested, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned.139
What is seen with all of these artists over the years is a willingness to be fiercely critical of those in authority, a commitment and loyalty to the place they called home, a powerful imagination married to artistic talent and a willingness to take risks to make a social or political point. All of this is seen in the work of Thomas Nast (1840–1902), the “father of American political cartooning.”140 According to Karl Kae Knecht, “Nast was the first to use many characters in use today, such as the donkey for the Democratic Party, the elephant for the Republican Party, a goose for socialism, the square cap which cartoonists use on ‘labor,’ and the roly-poly Santa Claus.”141 He was also a man willing to use savage satire to take on William “Boss” Tweed and the entrenched power brokers of Tammany Hall in New York in the early 1870s. His cartoons, which appeared in Harper’s Weekly, lambasted Tweed and his gang and eventually destroyed their political power; in arguably the most famous line ever uttered about political cartoons, Tweed said, “Let’s stop them damned pictures. I don’t care so much what the papers write about me—my constituents can’t read; but damn it, they can see the pictures.”142
Young Thomas Nast, undated. UE/EVPL.
Thomas Nast died in 1902, the year that Karl Kae Knecht graduated high school. Knecht drew a cartoon of Nast as a boy and called him “the pioneer of all the newspaper editorial cartoonists.”143 He clearly greatly respected Nast’s contribution to the profession, and as a historian of cartooning, Knecht was well aware that what he himself was doing was building on a foundation that had been laid by artists over the past centuries. Little did he know that his own name would one day be added to the annals of the cartooning profession, and it is to Knecht’s life’s work—the cartoons—that this book will now turn.
Chapter 4
CARTOONS 1903–39
Karl Kae Knecht began his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1903, and his professional life as a cartoonist in Evansville began in 1906. Between that time and 1939, he drew thousands of cartoons on numerous topics, and he covered some of the most momentous events of the century, including World War I, Prohibition, the Great Depression, the growth of aviation and the sinking of the Titanic. He also covered one of the most significant stories in the history of Evansville—the great flood of 1937—not just as a cartoonist but also as a pioneering photographer. This chapter will examine some of the most striking cartoons from this first period of his professional life.
The first cartoons in this section are wonderful examples of Knecht’s ability as an artist and are included here even though some of them are not strictly cartoons at all. His undated drawing of Abraham Lincoln, The Young Man of 21 in 1830, is believed to be part of his output while at the Art Institute of Chicago between 1903 and 1906. Although a rough sketch, perhaps unfinished, it is nevertheless fascinating. It contains many of the essential ingredients of the Lincoln boyhood myth—the axe, the split lumber, the log cabin and the book, in this case a book of law. Although a man of action and strength, he is also a man of contemplation and perhaps even vision, as he seems to be deep in thought and looking to an as-yet-unknown future. It is reminiscent of two very famous later wor
ks: Lincoln the Rail Splitter by J.L.G. Ferris (1909) and Norman Rockwell’s 1965 painting of the same name. The contemplative element is also present in Indiana sculptor E.M. Viquesney’s Lincoln as an Indiana Boy, produced in 1938.144 Another of Knecht’s Art Institute drawings—a female nude from 1905—is included simply to give a sense of his accomplishment as an artist. Smooth and realistic, replete with depth and feeling, it reminds the reader that an ability to draw well lay at the heart of his success, although he said in 1947, “In a cartoon the idea is the main thing. Next in importance is the composition of the drawing. Third, comes the drawing.”145
Young Abe Lincoln, circa 1903–6. UE/EVPL.
Three other cartoons produced between 1912 and 1932 offer further evidence of his profound technical abilities as an artist, although the first is a clear example of what is a moral gray area for any creative person: plagiarism. It is a striking image of a herald bringing in the baby New Year 1912 while the old year departs; the herald wears the livery of the Evansville Courier, and the cartoon was drawn for a special edition of the newspaper—it did not appear in the standard January 1 edition. Knecht added “with regards to Partridge” under his signature, a common practice when one cartoonist imitates or produces a pastiche of another work of art. In the words of Martha H. Kennedy:
Creators of comic art frequently borrow, adapt, or transform elements of artistic traditions or prototypes they deem useful for their projects.…As part of the creative process, cartoonists also reference genres, artistic modes, and classic prototypes well recognized within the field of comic art itself. Some examples play on or off a specific drawing or predecessor’s or peer’s creative contribution and can be seen as a tribute to or respectful acknowledgment of the originator.146
Full-length portrait of a female nude, 1905. UE/EVPL.
This one, however, is pushing this convention to the absolute limit. Sir John Bernard Partridge (1861–1945) was one of Britain’s most influential cartoonists, drawing for Punch for over half a century. He also drew cartoons for commercial companies’ advertising, including Selfridge’s department stores, and in 1909, he drew an opening-day advertisement for that company, “Herald Announcing the Opening.”147 Knecht’s 1912 image is an exact copy—line for line—of that work, with just a couple of minor adjustments; it is so similar that it could only have been done by tracing. Knecht acknowledged that he was in the habit of doing so, writing many years later that in the early period, “I did all the art work, illustrations, sketches and the like [for the Courier]. For line drawing from photo [I] used tracing paper over heads or photos…and traced over that on chalk plate for impression. Had no services for those first years, [so I] used much…by clipping half tones from larger city papers etc.”148 While he clearly acknowledges Partridge in the cartoon and was quite open about tracing other images, to a modern sensibility it seems perilously close to the line that divides tribute from plagiarism.
A herald on horseback announcing the New Year, January 1912. UE/EVPL.
His drawing celebrating the opening of the Henderson-Evansville Ohio River bridge in July 1932 was entitled simply “The Bridge.” It is powerful and dramatic, taking a viewpoint from below and to the side of the bridge. It communicates the majesty and impressiveness not just of the bridge but of the river, too. Knecht would have been smiling as he drew this cartoon, as for years he had been an activist in the campaign for the bridge to be built and for it to be built at Evansville. He drew many cartoons that argued eloquently for this cause and that condemned the distractions and special interests that had gotten in its way over the course of the 1920s. These cartoons included an astonishing full-page front-page rendering of an imagined bridge under the headline “A Bridge Across the Ohio Is Evansville’s Next Big Job,” published on February 6, 1921.
“The Bridge,” July 1932. UE/EVPL.
Another celebration of a special moment in local history was his 1917 drawing entitled “The Founding of Evansville by Hugh McGary—1817,” which was produced for the 1917 special Midsummer Edition of the Courier. It must have been a remarkably busy time for Knecht—other large images he drew for that edition included “The Arrival of the First Stage Coach,” “Sunset Park Thirty Years Ago,” “When Steamboating Was at Its Height on the Ohio,” “The Passing Parade” and “Evansville in Civil War Days. Troops Passing at Third and Main Streets, 1861.” He also provided three illustrations for a story about Evansville men in the army, as well as the regular front-page cartoon. The McGary drawing is a wonderful imaginative rendering of the mythic moment of the establishment of the city, as founding father Hugh McGary, gun in hand, stares wistfully at the forested riverbanks that one day will become Evansville. He wears a coonskin hat—reminding us perhaps that his father was in fact a “close associate of Daniel Boone”—and there are two Native Americans to his right, rendered with respect and dignity.149
The sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, was one of the worst disasters of the period, and as a recent writer observed, “It is striking how quickly the Titanic became embedded within visual and literary culture from immediately after the disaster in the form of contemporary reportage, photographs of anxious relatives waiting for news at the White Star Line offices, the multitudes of illustrations depicting the ship’s collision with the iceberg, publication of the official inquiries and imaginative, filmic and literary meditation on the ship’s sinking.”150 It certainly attracted Knecht’s attention, and his cartoons on this subject make a remarkable series. His first, published on April 17, 1912, and entitled “Always Lurking Around,” depicts an iceberg with a grinning skull of death, lying in wait for the unsuspecting White Star liner and all those on board. One day later, one of his most powerful and poignant cartoons was published. Stark and simple, it shows the Titanic passengers’ hats and the captain’s and crew’s caps being tossed in heavy seas; it appeared under the caption “Men Who Were Real Men.” On April 19, his cartoon appeared with a double caption—text both above and below the image. It shows surviving women and children disembarking from a rescue vessel at New York Harbor. The top caption is simply “Hoping,” and the bottom caption is “That their loved ones might have been picked up by other boats, is the arriving survivor’s one comforting thought.” His fourth successive Titanic cartoon, published on April 20 under the caption “The Way Uncle Sam Would Have Them!,” is a savage critique of the steamship companies that he believed would compromise passenger safety in order to offer more luxuries such as tennis courts, swimming pools and theaters but only “a few life boats.” Uncle Sam weeps as he looks into the possibility of passenger ships that offered “plenty of life boats to accommodate all on board” as well as “comforts enough to satisfy all.” It represents a remarkable pivot from pathos and memorialization to anger and indeed activism.
“The Founding of Evansville by Hugh McGary—1917,” June 1917. UE/EVPL.
The final cartoon in Knecht’s Titanic series, published on April 21, was an extremely powerful one, again making use of the double caption. Entitled “The Tombstones of the Seas,” it depicted icebergs as a variety of cemetery monuments, including a cross and an angel. At the center, silhouetted against a jet-black sky, stands a large white obelisk on which is inscribed “To the Titanic Dead. 1912.” The caption beneath is “Monuments of Heroes,” and beneath that is a remarkable and lengthy statement:
Memory of the greatest sea tragedy in history will fade, but icebergs will never look the same. Their appearance will always be a silent reminder of the disaster that befell the world’s greatest and largest boat. They will always stand as grim warnings to those who sail the seas to steer clear of such dangers. A costly toll in human lives was exacted, to warn those who ply the seas, that more attention must be paid to safety rather than speed and luxury.
Titanic passengers’ hats and the captain’s and crew’s caps, April 18, 1912. UE/EVPL.
Titanic survivors arriving at port, April 19, 1912. UE/EVPL.
Titanic and Uncle Sam, April 20, 1912. U
E/EVPL.
Once again Karl Kae Knecht is providing a complex and multilayered message that is poignant and respectful of the dead while at the same time being critical and activist.
His view that such disasters were a product of lax enforcement was also seen very obviously four years later in cartoons that responded to the terrible loss of the Chicago passenger excursion ship the SS Eastland, which rolled over at its dock on the Chicago River on July 25, 1915, killing over eight hundred people. Among the dead were twenty-two complete families.151 Knecht’s first cartoon was in itself a powerful and striking image—depicting the ship being rolled over by the giant bony finger of Death.152 A tragedy has taken place, but he places no blame. It could even be interpreted as a capricious act by the fickle finger of fate. But the next day, Knecht links this disaster to four others: a figure of Father Time tells a figure marked “Safety First” about a series of “Past Disasters.” On the list are the Iroquois theater fire of 1903, which killed over six hundred people; the 1904 Slocum excursion boat fire, in which over one thousand people died; the sinking of the Titanic in 1912; and the 1914 sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland, in which over one thousand people died.153 Although the figure receiving “another lesson” in this cartoon is sweating and weeping, the message is rather ambiguous and again assigns no blame. His July 27 cartoon, however, is very different. It is captioned “How About It?,” and it is an emphatic and powerful image of a courtroom scene. A large hand belonging to the “Public” points an accusatory or even judging finger at “Officialdom,” a hat-wringing figure in the dock, while Public’s other hand slams down a piece of paper inscribed “Prospects of future disasters, wholly man-made, wholly avoidable, wholly inexcusable.” The Iroquois, the Slocum and the Eastland disasters are all described as “man-made disasters” and “wholly avoidable.” Knecht has finally got around to apportioning blame, and in this environment, his chosen target is officials whose negligent enforcement of rules and codes were believed to have contributed to all of these disasters.