Taking a Stand

In this cartoon the artists wants to show his support for the American military response to the terrorist attacks on

September 11, 2001.

This artist is critical of the

war and is trying to

persuade the reader to

think about the cost of the war in

terms of lives lost.

Using symbols to make a pointThe donkey

is the symbol for

the Democratic Party in the

United States.

The donkey is afraid

because he (Democrats)

lost the election.The “W” on the boots represents the

president, George W. Bush. The cowboy boots refers to Bush’s use of the cowboy

image he promotes.

The crosses that are

where the spurs should be represent

the large group of Christian

voters who turned out in

the 2004 election and voted Bush into office.

The saddle represents the idea that Bush won

reelection and that he could “ride” the donkey (get what

he wants in Congress).

Using familiar icons to make a point

This famous photograph

shows American Marines hoisting

the American flag over the island of Iwa Jima during

World War II.

The many faces of Uncle Sam

The original Uncle Sam was first drawn in about 1834. Since that time different artists have chosen to draw the caricature of Uncle

Sam differently.

Sometimes the caricature of Uncle Sam

represents the American

government.

Sometimes it represents the

American people.

Sometimes it represents the

country.

The point is that caricatures are

drawn differently and will represent

different things.

A Call to ActionMany artists draw their cartoons to

get the readers to

take an action.

In this cartoon the artists

represents the crisis in the Sudan by drawing a

drowning man as the Sudan.

While Sudan is drowning, the international community is sitting in a life guards chair. The artist

has drawn the life guard in the same pose as a famous sculpture called “The Thinker”.

Drawing Inspiration

Sometimes history repeats itself. Sometimes themes repeat

themselves.

In the late 1800s Tammany Hall in New York was very corrupt.

A large scandal in 1871 led artist Thomas Nast to draw a cartoon of the blame for the corruption being

pushed off to others.

After the failure of the government to prevent the terrorist attack of 9/11, members of the government did a

similar thing in blaming others for the disaster.

Saying it without words

The cartoonist uses easily identifiable symbols to

show us how the situation in the Middle

East continues to

fail to improve.

The peace symbol is being worked on by painters from Israel and Palestine. The flags on the

painters backs show us how both

parties are working towards

peace, yet despite their best intentions, they

are cannot communicate and

create peace.

Explaining Social Security with a metaphor

A metaphor is an implied comparison between ideas to suggest a likeliness or analogy between them. It’s a tool that can help you understand difficult concepts like, say, the problems with

Social Security by simplifying the idea.

Understanding the Cold War through editorial cartoons.

In 1949 the powers failed to reach an agreement that

would have limited the spread and

control of atomic energy.

The artist suggests that atomic energy

is going to be dangerous, as he

creates a caricature for “Mr.

Atomic” in the form of a bomb.

The Suez Canal crisis signified the danger

of Russia moving into the oil rich Middle

East.

President Eisenhower asked Congress for

money to help contain the

communist threat in the Middle East.

The artist is critical of the government’s

inability to stop the spread of

communism at the same time it stopped American journalists

traveling to and reporting on events

in China.

“However, we have been

pretty successful in

keeping American

newspapermen out of China.”

The USA tried to rebuild Europe

by giving massive

assistance to European

countries (who had to spend

the aid on American

goods) with the Marshall Plan.

In response to the Marshall Plan, Stalin

announced the Molotov Plan for Eastern Europe.

The artists highlights the differences in western and

eastern Europe.

Notice the use of the Hammer and Sickle symbols.

Instead of being used as symbols of freedom, the

artist manages to change the

symbols as a yoke that turned people into farm

animals.

In the years after World War II, America went

through a “Red Scare”.

People thought that the

communist threat to the USA was

great, and so the country started

looking inward for traitors.

Hundreds of elementary and

high school teachers lost their

jobs under suspicion of being

communists.

The artist is showing how the FBI investigated

“suspect” teachers.

Communist China exploded its first nuclear bomb in

1964.

The artist has drawn a caricature

of the Chinese leader Mao Zedong

in the form of a mushroom cloud,

symbolizing a nuclear explosion.

The reaction in Washington, DC

and Moscow suggests that the balance of world

power based on the “bomb” had shifted in dangerous and

unpredictable ways.

The artist uses a metaphor in this

cartoon.

An Ancient Greek myth tells about

Pandora’s box. This was a mysterious box that people

were warned not to open, because once

it was opened it could never be closed again.

The USA and the USSR came very

close to nuclear war over the Cuban Missile Crisis in

1963.

President Kennedy and Premier

Krushchev of the USSR are like the

people who opened Pandora’s box.

Here the artist suggests that the threat of nuclear war is something

that may never be put away again.

Here we see the Soviet Premier,

Nikita Krushchev in the form of a

dentist.

He is working on his patient, the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro.

In an agreement to end the

Cuban Missile Crisis,

Krushchev agreed to

remove the nuclear missiles the Russians put on the island of

Cuba.

Six months later, President

Kennedy quietly removed

American Jupiter missiles from Turkey, on the border of the

USSR.

In January 1968, moderate

communists came to power in

Czechoslovakia.

They started a period of

democratization that became known as the

“Prague Spring”.

The Soviet Union worried that the

experimental democratic reforms

might spread to other countries in the Soviet Block.

In August 1968 the USSR sent troops

into Czechoslovakia who put an end to

the democratic reforms.

In 1965 President Johnson announced that the USA was not changing its

policy in Vietnam.

And yet, at the same time, the Department of

Defense announced that the USA was

sending an additional 21,000 troops to Vietnam.

The artist shows the president going up an escalator. He

claims that he is not changing the USA’s

position, but the escalator continues to climb, just as the USA’s involvement

in Vietnam.

The artist for this cartoon uses the symbol of the USSR, the hammer and sickle.

In 1991, the USSR (hammer and sickle) has been smashed into 15 pieces.

Each piece of the broken symbol represents one of the 15 Soviet republics, which became independent of the dominant Russian

Republic.