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Heather Cox Richardson
But welcome to this Friday event with Liza Donnelly. I'm really excited that she was willing to come on today. Liza is a writer and a cartoonist and one of my favorite people. She is incredibly prolific. She writes daily at Seeing Things, which is a substack publication to which I subscribe. And here's the secret that she doesn't know. I don't always open her cartoons because I love that they're there waiting for me when I can't face the world. And she has this incredibly light touch with very serious subjects that I find is really helping me getting through these days. But she's done more than that and is doing more than that. One of the things we're gonna be talking about is her new documentary, Women Laughing. And somewhere there will be a link to a Kickstarter, or at least we'll tell you how to contribute to that in a Kickstarter. And. And that is based on a book called Very Funny New Yorker's Women's Cartoonists. And so I'm hoping today that we can talk about what it meant to be a women's cartoonist in the 20th century, primarily through the New Yorker, where Liza appears as well. Because when we talked about this in the past, we did an event together a year ago, and we talked about it in the past, you know, I don't think I had really focused on the degree to which getting into the cartooning world for women in the New Yorker and in the 20th century was such an incredible uphill battle, in part because the New Yorker was not bad about introducing female writers like Shirley Jackson, for example, or Dorothy Parker. You know, there were a number of female writers that were frequently in the New Yorker, but the cartoonists were a really different story, right?
Liza Donnelly
Well, yes and no. I think the New Yorker started out as an equal opportunity, basically employer. And they had in 1925 when they started, they were started as a humor magazine. And there were women drawing illustration in that time in New York and some women doing comics, but Harold Ross, the founder, and Jane Grant, the other founder, they were married, were just finding the. Trying to find the best art, best talent, and some of those were women. So there were women in the beginning, in 1925, there were about eight, give or take, eight women drawing cartoons out of. Eventually out of many more men, like 30 or 40 or 50 men. So it was always they were underrepresented. But in the 20s, because of that post suffrage time in an urban, you know, in an urban environment, there was a feeling of freedom for women. But the rest of the country not so much. And then in the 50s, as you probably know, we talked about this after the war, after the Depression, the numbers dropped off to nothing. So there were no women drawing cartoons in the New Yorker in the middle of the century. And you could attribute that to a lot of different factors, but I think it was. The culture was getting more conservative and you didn't want to hear from women humorous. They were too risky. Humor was a male to me. So. And then we came back in the 70s when I started and Ross Chad started, and then. And ever since then, it's been slowly increasing. So the numbers now, as of 2017, I know the exact time when there was one issue in 2017, when there were more women cartoonists in the magazine than men. It's now equal at the New Yorker. But still, I think humor is. Is considered a man's world in many ways.
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, I would love to get to that. But let's start back there in the 20s with those early cartoonists, because I know you collect some of them and some of them are my absolute favorites. When I knew I was gonna talk to you, I pulled out this image which is one of my all time favorites. It's Helen Hokanson. And it's those two ladies at an art museum in. I think that's the 20s. Is that right?
Liza Donnelly
Yep, yep. 25.
Heather Cox Richardson
25. Looking at a modern sculpture. Now, what were those early cartoonists up to, the female cartoonists up to in the New Yorker, especially people like Hokanson's one of your favorites, right?
Liza Donnelly
Yeah, Hokanson. My other favorite is Barbara Sherman, who started in 1925 also. They were just trying to be cartoonists and they were actually, because of. They were women and they were trying to navigate the. The city as, you know, new women, quote, unquote. You know, there's a sense of freedom. They were drawing about what it was like to be a woman in that time. And so we get a glimpse as to what they were doing. And Barbara Sherman, actually, I like them both. Barbara Sherman for different reasons. Barbara Sherman was an early feminist cartoonist. Many of the cartoons back then done by women were not overtly feminist. They were indirectly feminist. Now you have a lot of really strong voices. Not that Sherman wasn't strong, but strong ideas, loud ideas coming out from women. It's fantastic. But back then it was more guys. The sexist humor, the feminist humor was a little bit more indirect and wonderful.
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, what I like so much about her and that era is her women are older, they're plump, they're clearly trying to Be engaged in their world. It seems to me there's a very clear sympathy for them that I doubt I would have seen from a male cartoonist. Is that fair?
Liza Donnelly
That's a good question. I do know that she started out drawing young women in the twenties, and then she started drawing these matronly, heavy sets, talking about hoping. Matronly, heavyset women who, like. Like you said, they were. They were curious. They wanted to go out in the world. They wanted to explore, they wanted to do things. And sometimes they were bumbling, sometimes they didn't know what they were doing. They were. They seemed silly. And what's. And that. That caught on with the public. Hugely caught on. They loved these ladies. And she loved. She said she's written I love my ladies. But in the 40s, she felt. And I read. I went to the New York Public Library for the archives, and I read a lot of letters that she wrote, correspondence between her and her editor. And she felt that her ladies were being misunderstood as the 40s progressed and that they were laughing at these women and not with them. She said, I love my ladies. I think they're wonderful. And so she embarked on a speaking tour in 1949 to try to explain her ladies to the public. And she was tragically killed in a plane accident that year. So she never got to do it. But you're right, that's what she's known for, is those ladies. And what was your question that would have just.
Heather Cox Richardson
If you think about the way that the sensibility in those early New Yorker years of the female cartoonists, there is a sense of sympathy with the women, that they are representing the women from their point of view, and they are women who are entering the world sometimes like your older ladies are, but sometimes like, you know, in. In some of your work, I've seen pictures of young women who are taking advantage of the matrimonial scene to advance their own interests, for example. It's one way to put it. You might put it differently. And I. What I want to ask you next, though, is when they got read out or written out of the New Yorker. Why and how? Because there is this sympathy in the early years, I think, for women being part of this public sphere that then appears to get erased in the 1950s when women cease to appear in the magazine as artists and are portrayed in a really different way. That then changes again when people like you get involved. And I'm interested in that transition, like we go from this, the 20s, where there's sort of support for the idea of women in this Role both as an artist and as a character to like you just said. She says, nobody understands my ladies. They're making fun of them in the 40s. And then we get rid of women cartoonists altogether in the New Yorker.
Liza Donnelly
Well, it's a complicated question, complicated answer. So in the 20s we had Jane Grant, who was one of the founders. She was a feminist activist. She was one of the founders of the Lucy Stone League. So while Harold Ross, her husband, may have been a little bit of an old school male, she. I think her, even though she was not an editor at the magazine, she helped start it. And I think she influenced the tone of the magazine. So did the, so did the flapper era in New York. And then Ross hired Katherine angel, who I know everybody knows about as an editor. And she had oversight of the cartoons. She was not the editor of cartoons, but she had oversight of particularly the ones by the women. So I think her, and she's a Bryn Mawr graduate, very sophisticated Bostonian, you know, very high, you know, highfalutin woman, but a great editor. And I think she created an atmosphere for the cartoons or a way of making sure the cartoons were not sexist towards the women. And then I don't like to say that the New Yorker pushed women out. I don't think that's really quite true. I think we have a new. Harold ross, died in 51. And then we have a new cartoon editor in 1939 who had a different sensibility and cartoons. This is an interesting point, is that cartoons became so popular and so famous and so well known that men and people like gag riders were flooding, flooding the scene, you know, so they were crowding women out. And women were being. Women who wanted to be in the business were probably didn't even think of it really, or they, because they were expected to raise children, be domestic, go back to their homes and not become cartoonists. And then that's when in the, in the 40s and 50s and 60s, cartoons got pre sexist all over the country. Not just. I mean, the New Yorker has some really sexist cartoons, but it was a cultural influence too.
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, just to be clear, I suspect a lot of people don't know who Catherine Angell is. She is the mother of Roger Angell and she married E.B. white, who was also working at the New Yorker. And they went on to move back to. Or to move to Maine. Not back to Maine, to move to Maine. And they were the parents of Joel White, who, who is the guy who started the renewal of the concept of building wooden Boats in the state of Maine. And that's the wooden boat hat I wear. So everybody is kind of, like involved in this cultural moment in that period. I mean, they're just. The New Yorker is not just about New York in the 1950s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. So I didn't realize that there was that shift over that with ross leaving in 51 or dying in 51 and a new editor and pushing people out. It does speak to that moment.
Liza Donnelly
Well, Ross was followed by William Shaw, who was a great editor. It was the cartoon editor that I think his sensibility was less sensitive to the women's point of view. And he had his gang of guys.
Heather Cox Richardson
And.
Liza Donnelly
Maybe he was not as comfortable working with the women. I don't know. But I don't think it was a decision by anybody to say, let's get the women out of here. I don't wanna be that sharp on it.
Heather Cox Richardson
So tell me about you getting involved in the field and how things changed in the 70s.
Liza Donnelly
Well, the 70s, again, it's following a wave of feminism. After the second wave of feminism, there was a feeling that we could do anything among certain demographic. Right. So I thought I could do anything. And I wanted to be a cartoonist. I knew about the New Yorker. I started submitting cartoons to them. And again, a new cartoon editor, Lee Lorenz, who was looking for. He started in 73, and I interviewed him for my book. He was looking for new ways to express humor. And when you do that, you get lots of different points of view and you bring more diversity into the situation. So he was not looking for women cartoonists by any means. He told me that. But he was looking for new ways to express humor. So he found Ross Chast, and then he brought me in and nurt Carlin and some other people, Victoria Roberts. And slowly the numbers of women creeped back in. Yeah.
Heather Cox Richardson
Do you remember the first cartoon you sold in the New Yorker?
Liza Donnelly
Oh, of course. Yeah.
Heather Cox Richardson
What was it?
Liza Donnelly
It's a complicated one. I mean, it's hard to describe because it's. I just got out of school. I was an art major. And it's. I don't know. In art, you learn that Paul Cezanne had. He had theories of art. He had a theory that all people have to draw. Learn how to draw three things. The cone, the sphere and the cylinder. And if you can draw those three things, you can draw anything. So I have a. It's a captionless cartoon. I have a cone, a sphere and a cylinder, and then a TV set. So that that was. The joke was a twist on a. That's what cartoons are, often a twist on a. On a. A cliche sound. Anyway, I don't wanna talk so much about myself, Heather.
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, I'm sorry. I'm back, you know, so the thing is, I oughta warn people about this. Even when people are interviewing me, I am really interested in other people. I'm not that interested in myself. I know.
Liza Donnelly
So. But you're fascinating. I love. I got on substack. I found you immediately got hooked and you actually inspired me to write. Every single day I write and draw on my substack. It's not just. And you continue to be an inspiration to me because we had a conversation when we first met and you said to me, all I want to do is get a Democrat elected. This is before the election. And I thought, wow, that's powerful, that's committed. And I had no idea how committed you are and particularly now. And so your energy rubs off on me that I really feel like I have to do something with this substack. So I write about politics as well. Every day, or almost every day.
Heather Cox Richardson
Yes. And the cartoons make it all the, I mean, cartoons to me is a. I think of it in the older sense of cartoons, you know, the way that the great masters used cartoons as a way to sketch out the basis for their masterpieces, you know, which. Cause, you know, otherwise it sounds sort of like the old Nancy cartoons or whatever. But yours do that too, where you get yourself into a really hard topic. But as I say, with these light colors and this light way of approaching it. I am interested in the. You know, and I guess we don't really have time to go in this now and I feel like we probably ought to tip our hands that we are working on a project together that I hope we'll do a lot more of these where we can actually explore the things we're working on. But one of the things that's bothering me today is I do like to write every day because I'm keeping a daily record. And I think it sort of builds a community because you talk every day.
Liza Donnelly
Right.
Heather Cox Richardson
And this. Actually, I don't think I've ever said this to anybody before, except perhaps my husband. I learned about this when I lived in London for a year. And I'm not a TV watcher. I just. I've never been interested in tv. I kind of grew up without it, never really cared a lot about it. But when I was in London, There were these 20 minute soap operas on TV and just for 20 minutes a night or a day, actually, they're on twice a day. You could watch these people. But the trick that I discovered was that if you didn't know anybody there, you got really wrapped into their lives. And you didn't wanna miss a day, because that's how the story progressed. And if you did miss a day, you would miss something that had happened in each of their lives. And that's where I got the idea that if you were gonna keep a record of the United States, you needed to do it every single day. Because otherwise, you know, Vincent might have, you know, had a car accident. And you didn't hear it.
Liza Donnelly
No. And I loved. That's great. And I love the fact that a soap opera is what inspired Heather Cox Richardson to do what she's doing now.
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, wait till I tell you how I learned how I got the idea for how to write west from Appomattox, which was from romance novels anyway. But in a day like this, it's all stories.
Liza Donnelly
It's people's lives, right? That's what we do. We write about people's lives.
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, my problem with that book was that I was trying to tell a very big story over a long period of time. And I had no models for that. And I got absolutely absorbed in romance novels to the point that I actually wrote one. I've never published it, but I was fascinated by them. And I started to worry about myself. Cause I was actually a published historian and had a job as a historian. And I'm like, why am I obsessed with romance novels? And then I realized that that's what romance novels are. They're long. You know, I was covering 50 years. They're 50 years of time in which you are following a certain number of characters and watching how they interact. And that is absolutely the pattern for my west for mathematics. Anyway, in a day like today, the news sucks, basically. And I don't want to write a piece about the really nasty stuff that's happening right now. I just don't. It's a sunny day and, you know, there's been so much heavy stuff.
Liza Donnelly
What do you do?
Heather Cox Richardson
How do you. How do. Well, that's just. I was going to ask you, how do you deal with the really heavy topics you deal with in such a way that you can represent them in a piece that is as uplifting as you do? How do you choose what you're going to draw?
Liza Donnelly
I don't know. It depends on the day. And I don't do a political cartoon every day. It has to strike Me as visual and my cartoons, what you said earlier, I grew up in the 70s, 60s and 70s, during the Watergate era. And I wanted to be a political cartoonist back then. And I'm off track here from the question, but I think there's a point there. Herb Block was great. He was the Washington Post cartoonist. But a lot of the cartoons in my youth and into my young adulthood started to be more. They were all men, of course. I don't think there were any women back then. They were very hard hitting. They were very loud and opinionated, very strongly opinionated cartoons, which is fantastic. I mean, her Block, he was not. He brought Nixon down. He was not that opinionated. But he got. He skewered Nixon in a great way. But then it became, over time, these cartoons became more about strong, loud opinions about governments and wars and, you know, dictators and all that. But I wanted to get at politics from the side door and with my light line of drawing, I wanted to talk about politics as it affects people and how cartoons can express what we're feeling. So I do that sometimes in cartoons that are like New Yorker cartoons where two people are talking and they're talking is indirectly related to what's going on around us in that moment in time, either culturally or politically. Or I'll sometimes do a cartoon about Trump that is not so much. I'm not going to put Trump on a toilet seat and have that kind of humor. That's just not my style. But I'm going to skewer him in a visual somehow, or at least draw, shine a light on something he's doing with a visual. So I'm not so much sharing my opinion as I'm trying to show people something.
Heather Cox Richardson
That's what I do, but just with words. So have you thought about what. Have you thought about what you're going to draw today?
Liza Donnelly
No. Do you want to think about what you're going to draw today? No. I mean, that's what we talked about, that sometimes it's a matter of just draw. Starting to draw, you really just have to start, put pen to paper and see what happens. Are we almost done here? 25 minutes.
Heather Cox Richardson
Do you want to give it a shot? Sure.
Liza Donnelly
What should I draw, Heather?
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, I was trying to think about that because I'll tell you what's on my mind and what I probably will write about today is I don't know if you saw the Department of Homeland Security has been posting pictures to its website. And not its website, it's to social media. And last night they did one that's very commonly associated with manifest destiny, the 19th century term for Americans moving westward and absorbing land peoples with their own particular brand of religion, social life, economy and political system. And that I think people are making a mistake to think that that's what they're endorsing now. I think they're doing something that is much more serious even than that. That is actually a fascist based thing. But I am thinking about images and the things like from last night, the, the thing that Molly White posted about Justin's son, who's who has put $213 million into Trump related cryptocurrency projects, showing a picture of one of the crypto meme dogs manipulating the White House with strings. And that reminds me of images from puck in the 19th century. I'm thinking about images and politics today and we'll probably end up somewhere around that. But otherwise the news is pretty grim with DOJ talking to Ghislaine Maxwell with horrific stories about ICE agents assaulting individuals. And I just don't know how.
Liza Donnelly
Concentration camps. Concentration camps.
Heather Cox Richardson
I mean, what do you do in a day like that? Do you just start drawing and hope something like someone picking strawberries comes out?
Liza Donnelly
Well, that's where I. We wish. I don't know. I'm also aware of my audience. I mean, I have to be aware, as you do, what their tolerance is. And I don't want to draw Trump every day. I want to mix it up. So I mix it up with cartoons that are not political. So I don't. That's where words come in. Helpful with the writing is I will write about the serious stuff that's going on and link to the, whatever the Homeland Security or the concentration camps or, or Ghislaine Maxwell and then do a cartoon that might be related. And as I'm writing, probably I'll think, I'll think about that. Maybe it'll be something about. But I can't draw about. About sex trafficking. I just can't. I mean, I've drawn about rape, but it's hard to get at. It's really hard to access that stuff. And you gotta ask yourself, why are you doing this? What's the point of drawing what you're trying to. Are you trying to say something that's helpful and not just be salacious, you know, so that's a complicated answer. There's no real. I mean, like you're writing. There's no. I feel like there's no formula. If there were a formula, we'd be much. Richard.
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, I'm sort of Hoping that you will take us out with a drawing. Is that too much?
Liza Donnelly
Nope. Let me take this down and see if I can. If I flip my. I don't know if I flip my.
Heather Cox Richardson
Somebody says you should draw the two of us. So just so you know, all of you, I am working up eventually. Not today. To ask Liza to illustrate historical stories I tell, which I think would be totally, totally cool. And if I had thought of it, I would have thought of something that happened today in history, and I didn't.
Liza Donnelly
So we're kind of doing that. Doing something like that. That you'll tell a story. And as you're telling the story, I'll.
Heather Cox Richardson
Draw it next time. Let's do it.
Liza Donnelly
Yeah, but I don't know. See, if I turn this around, Is that. No, that works. Okay. You're still there.
Heather Cox Richardson
I'm still here.
Liza Donnelly
Yeah, but I turned my camera around and I'm holding it. So let's see. I'm going to draw you, Heather. I've drawn you before. I drew you in. In Maine, remember?
Heather Cox Richardson
Yeah. And I did a great job. Like, your. Your hand. And then I'm like, I'm done.
Liza Donnelly
This is not good. I'm not a. I'm not a caricaturist. No, this is not good. I don't like that. What's that? This is. Look at that. That's something. An old sketch about the pandemic, about the coronavirus.
Heather Cox Richardson
How fun that is. That's great.
Liza Donnelly
Yeah. And then here's one I found earlier. A sketch I think I did for a project. The project you and I are working on. A couple in a covered wagon. And there's a caption here. I thought we were going for white wine and fries. So that. I mean, that's a sketch. And I actually drew that up. I remember I drew that up and I sent it to the New Yorker, but they didn't buy it, so.
Heather Cox Richardson
Oh, can we keep that for the book?
Liza Donnelly
Sure, let's keep that for now. I said, I don't know how to draw you, Heather. You're not easy to draw.
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, you can chalk that up to me and not you. I will say, I was just talking to somebody about a talk we're giving this week or next week or something on. On lobsters. And he had the cutest little images of baby lobsters that I wish you. You could do that, because they were like, lobsters are not cute, let me tell you.
Liza Donnelly
So do you eat them, Heather? You must eat them.
Heather Cox Richardson
I don't know. I mean, I will, but I don't I don't. Do you?
Liza Donnelly
Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Heather Cox Richardson
I, I, I, I, I, I'm not allergic to them or anything, but, you know.
Liza Donnelly
Oh.
Heather Cox Richardson
They're not something that we go out of our way for, which is incredibly ironic because I wish, I wish desperately. I loved them. Buddy's mother loved them, and she was in luck. But neither one of us.
Liza Donnelly
He's a lobster person, isn't he? He's a lobsterman.
Heather Cox Richardson
Yes, he is. He's a lobsterman. And neither one of us eat it.
Liza Donnelly
That's so interesting. Now, there's a side view of you in my imagination, so that approaches you.
Heather Cox Richardson
There you go. That looks Thurber esque.
Liza Donnelly
Well, thank you.
Heather Cox Richardson
Oh, somebody says Amelia earhart was born July 24th. Although today's July 25th, isn't.
Liza Donnelly
Is. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to the possibility of doing this live with you somehow. You telling a story. You have so many great stories. You've told some of them to me of people during Reconstruction. What a fascinating time period. I didn't know much about it until I met you. And now I've read everything I can. I'm trying to read everything I can about it.
Heather Cox Richardson
And I haven't even told you the great stuff about the artists, which is, you know, my favorite experiments with art and clothing. I mean, we get a whole new kind of clothing with the American. Yeah, with the American west and the images of the American west. The idea of having fringe on clothing comes back to the East. So women start wearing clothing with the, you know, the fringe that was on the leather jackets of the Western cowboys was designed to wick water away from their clothing. And that comes back to the East. So women start wearing dresses covered with fringe, and that's when we get that. Anyway, on that cheery note, thank you for.
Liza Donnelly
Thank you for doing this. And the documentary is coming out this year, Heather, but we still need help with post production. You said I could mention this. Oh, yes, please. Do we have a Kickstarter. We still need a little more funding to help with that. It's called Women Laughing. And I'm telling the stories of these women we talked about from the past, but also modern women. And we're actually drawing together. I sit across the table from Roz Chas and Liana Fink, and I draw with them as we talk about what we do. So my idea was that this is about the creative process and how women's voices, movement stories have not been told through humor by women. So now they are being told. But anyway, you can donate to our Kickstarter. And one of the rewards is going to be the video of Heather and I doing that event in Maine last year at our theater, Lincoln Theater. So we're going to.
Heather Cox Richardson
So I'm sorry, Liza, could you explain to people like me where one finds a Kickstarter? I know the word, but I don't know how one finds it.
Liza Donnelly
Yeah, no, I mean, it was not me until last year. So it's on my. Where is it on my social media. It's also on my Kick on my. On my substack. But you can go to. You can go to kickstarter.com and search for wooden library.
Heather Cox Richardson
I didn't know that was a thing.
Liza Donnelly
Yeah, yeah. So anyway, there's some great rewards, some books and prints and. And this video with Heather and I from last year talking about women and.
Heather Cox Richardson
Cartoonists and how you can change the world by being part of it and drawing in it and spreading your message.
Liza Donnelly
Right. I just want to add that you had a great video this morning on YouTube talking about how encouraging people to not feel. That's one of the great things. You do not feel alone and not lose hope and that you can do something. You don't have to be, you know, go out there and march or, you know, go to your senator's office and complain. You can do what you know how to do at home. And that's helping. So helping change things.
Heather Cox Richardson
I love that we're building this great community, and that's actually about carrying this country forward after the trouble that we're in now. We have to have a vision for what comes next. And, you know, if you think about any time a country has recovered from fascism or from authoritarianism, it always. Or communism, it always requires our artists, so our scientists, for sure, our writers, all of our participants, but certainly our artists. So thank you for being here. And can we do this again?
Liza Donnelly
I'd love to do it again. Thank you, Heather.
Heather Cox Richardson
Super. Have a nice weekend.
Liza Donnelly
Have a nice weekend, everybody. Bye, everybody. Thanks for being here.
Heather Cox Richardson
It.
Letters from an American: Episode Summary – Chatting with Liza Donnelly
Release Date: July 25, 2025
In this engaging episode of Letters from an American, host Heather Cox Richardson sits down with renowned writer and cartoonist Liza Donnelly. The conversation delves into the rich history of women cartoonists at The New Yorker, the challenges they faced, and Donnelly's new documentary, Women Laughing. The episode provides a deep dive into gender dynamics within the world of political cartooning and celebrates the resurgence of female voices in the field.
Heather Cox Richardson opens the discussion by expressing her admiration for Liza Donnelly, highlighting Donnelly's prolific contributions to Seeing Things, a Substack publication. Richardson remarks on Donnelly's ability to use humor to navigate serious subjects, which has been a source of comfort during challenging times.
"She has this incredibly light touch with very serious subjects that I find is really helping me get through these days." [00:00]
The conversation shifts to the historical context of women cartoonists at The New Yorker. Donnelly provides an insightful overview of the magazine's beginnings in 1925, noting that while women were represented, they were significantly underrepresented compared to their male counterparts.
"In 1925 when they started, they were started as a humor magazine. And there were women drawing illustration in that time in New York and some women doing comics..." [01:54]
Donnelly highlights key figures like Helen Hokanson and Barbara Sherman, emphasizing their subtle yet impactful feminist undertones in their work.
"Barbara Sherman was an early feminist cartoonist. Many of the cartoons back then done by women were not overtly feminist. They were indirectly feminist." [04:19]
Richardson and Donnelly delve into the decline of women cartoonists during the 1950s. Donnelly attributes this downturn to cultural shifts towards conservatism, which marginalized women's voices in humor.
"The culture was getting more conservative and you didn't want to hear from women humorous. They were too risky." [04:19]
They discuss the impact of editorial changes, particularly after the death of The New Yorker's founder Harold Ross in 1951, and how subsequent cartoon editors favored male cartoonists, further sidelining women in the magazine.
"Cartoon editor William Shaw... his sensibility was less sensitive to the women's point of view." [12:10]
The dialogue transitions to the 1970s, a pivotal decade for women in cartooning. Donnelly recounts her personal journey into the field, inspired by the second wave of feminism and the evolving editorial landscape at The New Yorker.
"Lee Lorenz... was looking for new ways to express humor. So he found Ross Chast, and then he brought me in..." [12:10]
The entry of women like Donnelly and Roz Chast marked the beginning of a gradual increase in female cartoonists, achieving gender parity by 2017.
"As of 2017... it's now equal at The New Yorker." [03:41]
Richardson inquires about Donnelly’s approach to creating cartoons amidst today’s tumultuous political climate. Donnelly explains her method of blending light-hearted visuals with poignant political commentary, aiming to reflect how politics impacts everyday lives without resorting to overt caricatures.
"I wanted to get at politics from the side door and with my light line of drawing, I wanted to talk about politics as it affects people." [18:32]
The conversation touches on the balance between addressing serious issues and maintaining an uplifting tone, showcasing Donnelly’s skill in navigating this duality.
"I mix it up with cartoons that are not political." [23:06]
Richardson and Donnelly discuss their collaborative projects, including the upcoming documentary Women Laughing. Donnelly emphasizes the importance of documenting and celebrating women's contributions to humor and political discourse.
"The documentary is coming out this year, Heather, but we still need help with post production." [28:11]
Donnelly shares details about their Kickstarter campaign aimed at funding the documentary, highlighting rewards such as exclusive videos and prints.
"They are going to the video of Heather and I doing that event in Maine last year..." [30:32]
The episode concludes with a heartfelt discussion on the role of artists in societal change. Both Richardson and Donnelly underscore the significance of community-building and fostering hope through creative expression.
"We have to have a vision for what comes next... it always requires our artists." [31:12]
Donnelly praises Richardson's efforts in building a supportive community through her daily writings, reinforcing the idea that collective action and creative endeavors are crucial for progress.
"You can do what you know how to do at home. And that's helping change things." [31:12]
"I don't like to say that The New Yorker pushed women out. I don't think that's really quite true." – Liza Donnelly [11:30]
"Cartoon editor William Shaw... had his gang of guys." – Liza Donnelly [11:50]
"All I want to do is get a Democrat elected." – Heather Cox Richardson [14:10]
This episode of Letters from an American offers a comprehensive exploration of the evolution of women cartoonists at The New Yorker. Through Liza Donnelly’s experiences and historical insights, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the gender dynamics in political cartooning. The discussion not only honors the trailblazing women of the past but also celebrates the ongoing contributions of female artists in shaping political dialogue through humor.
For those interested in supporting the documentary Women Laughing, Donnelly provides information on their Kickstarter campaign towards the episode's end, inviting listeners to contribute to this important cultural project.
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Liza Donnelly:
This summary is intended for informational purposes and to provide an overview of the podcast episode for those who have not listened to it. For more detailed insights and direct engagement, listening to the full episode is recommended.