John T. McCutcheon

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John Tinney McCutcheon (May 6, 1870 – June 10, 1949) was an American newspaper journalist, war reporter, combat writer, and author who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his 1931 editorial cartoon, "A Wise Economist Asks a Question." He died before his death as the "Dean of American Cartoonists" in 1931. In 1890, the Purdue University graduate went to Chicago, Illinois, to work as an artist and occasional reporter for the Chicago Morning News (later named the News Record, the Chicago Book, and the Record-Herald).

His first front-page cartoon appeared in 1895, and his first published political cartoon appeared in the United States.

1896 presidential election.

McCutcheon introduced human interest themes to newspaper cartoons in 1902 and joined the Chicago Tribune in 1903, where he served there until 1946.

McCutcheon's cartoons appeared on the Tribune's front page for forty years.

"Injun Summer" is one of his best-known cartoons; his series of "Bird Center" cartoons, which portrayed daily life in a fictional small town; and "The Colors" is one of his most popular wartime cartoons.

Drawn From Memory (1950), his autobiography, was released posthumously.

McCutcheon, a war reporter and combat photographer, covered the Spanish–American War, the Battle of Manila Bay, the Filipino–American War, and the Second Boer War in South Africa.

He also wrote from Europe during World War I, starting with his eyewitness account of the German invasion of Belgium.

In addition, McCutcheon went to Asia, Mexico, Africa, and the Bahamas, where he owned a private island named Salt Cay.

Early life and education

John Tinney McCutcheon was born in rural Tippecanoe County, Indiana, on May 6, 1870, to Captain John Barr McCutcheon and Clara (Glick) McCutcheon. McCutcheon's father, a farmer, stock raiser, and sheriff of Tippecanoe County, was a veteran of the American Civil War, who was also a baker and sheriff. In 1876, the McCutcheon family immigrated to Lafayette, Indiana, where John Barr McCutcheon was appointed as the first director of Purdue University's farming operations.

McCutcheon had two brothers and one sister. George Barr McCutcheon (1866-1988), a journalist and novelist who wrote Graustark (1901) and its sequels, as well as other literary works, was his older brother. After 1905, Ben Frederick McCutcheon, the youngest brother of the Chicago Tribune, became a columnist and then, its commercial editor. Ben McCutcheon joined the publishing business later this year. During their youth, the three brothers created and did drawings. Jessie (McCutcheon) Nelson, Nelson's sister, was a child of the royal family.

John McCutcheon earned a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial arts at Purdue University in 1889. He became a founding member of the Sigma Chi fraternity chapter on campus and worked with typographer Bruce Rogers on the Exponent, the student newspaper that McCutcheon helped establish as a student at Purdue. The Debris, McCutcheon's first year book, was also co-edited by the Debris.

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Career

McCutcheon wrote a weekly column of local news for the Lafayette Journal in his early years in Indiana. After graduating from Purdue, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1890, where he then went to work as an artist for the Chicago Morning News (later named the News Record, the Chicago Journal, and later the Record-Herald).

He sketched pictures of significant news events and occasionally wrote feature stories and news articles. McCutcheon begged George Ade, his brother and Sigma Chi fraternity brother, to join him in the newspaper, and the two were roommates in Chicago for a few years. (Ade later became a well-known author, journalist, and playwright.)

McCutcheon and Ade appeared on "All Roads Lead to the Fair," which were illustrated stories from the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1892. "Stories of the Streets and the Town," McCutcheon's collection of tales about daily life in Chicago, was also illustrated by McCutcheon. In a series of books from 1894 to 1900, Ade's articles and McCutcheon's illustrations were published.

In 1895, McCutcheon's first front-page cartoon appeared. During the William McKinley-William Jennings Bryan presidential campaign of 1896, his artistic style changed from illustrator to cartoonist, beginning with his first published political cartoons. McCutcheon's five-column illustrations for the front page of the Record-Herald included humular cartoons, not simply illustrations of news stories. The regular appearance of a non-descript dog, which became extremely popular with his audiences, was also included in his cartoons. McCutcheon introduced a new style of cartoon in 1902 that focused on human-interest themes. He also started his popular line of boy-themed cartoons. Prince Henry of Prussia's American tour was the subject of another series.

McCutcheon left the Record-Herald in 1903 and moved to the Chicago Tribune, where he remained until his retirement in 1946. McCutcheon brought his boy-theme cartoons, as well as his signature dog illustration, but he also introduced another human-interest story. McCutcheon said, "I always loved drawing a form of cartoon that could be described as a sort of pictorial breakfast dish." It had the cardinal feature of making the day's start sunnier." McCutcheon's "Bird Center" cartoons depicted a fictional small town with a stereotypical cast of characters. As Bird Center Cartoons: A Collection of His Drawings from the series (1904), a collection of his work from the series was published as Bird Center Cartoons: A Collection of Social Happenings at the Bird Center (1904).

McCutcheon's cartoons appeared on the front page of the Chicago Tribune for forty years, including many classics such as "A Boy in Springtime" and "Injun Summer" (considered one of the finest in this "boy" series). "A Wise Economist Asks A Question" received the Pulitzer Prize for his 1931 editorial cartoon, "A Wise Economist Asks A Question" by McCutcheon.

His famous "Injun Summer" cartoon first appeared in the Tribune on September 29, 1907, and was reprinted in 1910. In the fall from 1912 to 1993, it appeared every year. It became one of the Tribune's most popular cartoon features. McCutcheon's inspiration for the cartoon came from his boyhood days in Indiana. In comparison to annual reprints in the Tribune, a high-quality print was launched in 1919 in a Sunday issue. The cartoon appeared in an Indiana State Fair show in 1928 and as a lifesize diorama and a fireworks display at the Century of Progress International Exposition in 1933–34. In 1920, the Indiana Society of Chicago presented a dramatized interpretation of "Injun Summer" with McCutcheon's son, John Jr., portraying the young boy.

Despite its fame, the Tribune began receiving letters in the 1970s for releasing what some believed to be a "ethnically insensitive feature" that misrepresented Native Americans in the United States. Douglas Kneeland, a Tribune editor, referred to the cartoon as "a relic of another time" and "a museum work." In 1993, the annual publication of "Injun Summer" was discontinued.

McCutcheon began as a newspaper cartoonist and war reporter, and he later covered the Spanish–American War, the Philippine-American War, the Second Boer War in South Africa, as well as Europe during World War I. He was also a world traveler. In 1895, McCutcheon and his companion, George Ade, traveled to Europe to work on illustrated stories for the Chicago News. What a Man Sees Away From Home (1896), a collection of their drawings, was later published as a book. McCutcheon started an around-the-world cruise on board the McCulloch as a guest of the US Treasury Department on January 8, 1898. He travelled to Olympia, Malta, Singapore, and Hong Kong before heading to the United States Olympia. McCutcheon was an eyewitness to the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, and he remained in the Philippines for several months to report war before returning to the Philippines for several months.

McCutcheon's travels included trips to Africa and reporting on the Boer War in 1900. He returned to Africa in 1909-2010 to participate in big-game hunting and spent some time on safari with Theodore Roosevelt. McCutcheon travelled to Mexico in 1914, where he met and drew a portrait of Pancho Villa. McCutcheon was an eyewitness to the German invasion of Belgium at the start of World War I as a war correspondent. Before returning to work as a cartoonist in Chicago, he covered the war in England and France.

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Honors and awards

• In 1927 McCutcheon and other American cartoonists that included Kin Hubbard (creator of the Abe Martin comic strip), Gaar Williams, Harold Gray (famous for the Little Orphan Annie comic strip), and Fontaine Fox (creator of the Toonerville Folks comics) had their work featured in the annual Hoosier Salon art exhibition.
• McCutcheon's 1932 Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoon, "A Wise Economist Asks a Question", was a Great Depression-era cartoon about a victim of bank failure.
• McCutcheon High School at Tippecanoe County, Indiana, (his home county) is named in his honor.
• McCutcheon is memorialized in a coeducational dormitory named McCutcheon Hall on the Purdue University campus in West Lafayette, Indiana. The lobby displays an original of one of his drawings, a nearly life-size drawing of a young man.
• Travel Plaza 1, Mile Post 22, at Portage, Indiana, on the Indiana Toll Road is named after McCutcheon.