The Sting of The Wasp
February 1 - April 15, 2005
The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library
27 West 17th Avenue Mall, Columbus, Ohio
Guest curator Richard Samuel West will speak at 6 30 p.m.,
Thursday, March 3, 2005 at the Cartoon Research Library.
A reception honoring Mr. West will begin at 5:30 p.m. This
event is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored
by the Aldus Society.
For most of the 19th century, American magazines were vast
monochromatic fields of black on white. Beginning in the
1830s, a few magazines featured small hand-colored plates,
but they were meager exceptions. Then, in the 1870s, thanks
to the perfection of the chromolithographic process, a new
breed of magazine exploding with color came to the fore.
In short order, chromolithographic weeklies began popping
up all over America. Outside of the famous New York weeklies,
Puck and Judge, though, none lasted more than a year or two,
except for one--The San Francisco Wasp.
That The Wasp endured was most improbable. Founded during
the worst financial depression of the 19th century, it was
expensive to produce. Published in an under-populated region
of the country, it was guaranteed never to have a significant
circulation. Often out of step with majority opinion, it
never became the political power broker it aspired to be.
Yet The Wasp was a success. It was for many years the most
widely read magazine west of the Rockies. Its best cartoons
compared favorably with those being published in New York.
And the work of one of its editors, Ambrose Bierce, is read
by more people today than are the writings of any of the
editors of its more widely celebrated rivals.
During its first twenty years, the period of time when cartoons
dominated its contents, The Wasp was, by turns, a staunch
partisan of the Democratic Party, then politically independent,
and finally a Republican Party booster of various stripes.
It was owned by a series of men intent on advancing one political
agenda or another. Twelve different men edited the magazine,
while five served at different times as its chief cartoonist.
The Wasp was the colorful chronicler of one of the most
exciting periods in the history of San Francisco. This show
presents some of The Wasp's most powerful and representative
cartoons from the private collection of guest curator Richard
Samuel West. The exhibit is supported in part by the Mark
Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel Endowment and Milton Caniff
Endowment of the Cartoon Research Library. Richard Samuel
West is an independent scholar and historian of American
political cartooning. He edited two periodicals, The Puck
Papers and Target, and is the author of the outstanding biography
of Joseph Keppler, Satire on Stone. He currently is the owner
of Periodyssey, the largest company in New England specializing
in rare and out-of-print magazines. West's most recent book
is The San Francisco Wasp: An Illustrated History.
Parking is available in the Ohio Union and Arps garages.
Due to the Wexner Center renovation, access to the Cartoon
Research Library is limited to walkways on the east and the
north.
