#91 The History of Satire and the American Political Cartoon w/ Richard Samuel West

The Road to Now

Benjamin Sawyer

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2018

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of The Road to Now, Richard Samuel West joins Bob and Ben for a conversation on the history of political cartoons in the United States. West tells of how political cartoonists went from independent artists in the early 19th century who sold their work on the streets to become powerful actors in American politics just a few decades later. He also explains how technological and social forces led to the rise, and eventual fall, of political cartoons as a form of satire, and how one of America's most powerful and corrupt crime bosses was brought down by a single artist and his drawings.

Richard Samuel West is the coauthor of What Fools These Mortals Be: The History of Puck (IDW Publishing, 2014 w/ forward by Bill Waterson) and the founder of Periodyssey, which specializes in "significant and unusual American paper."

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is in the Loop, the Legion of Osiris Podcasts.
0:07.7	What does that mean?
0:08.9	Osiris is a community of great music and culture podcasts.
0:12.6	If you like this one, go check out others at osirispod.com and get in the loop.
0:18.2	Osiris is partnered with Relics Magazine at relics.com.
0:34.7	I'm Bob Crawford and is always joined by Dr. Ben Sawyer. Ben, how are you doing today?
0:38.8	I'm doing fabulous, Bob.
0:40.4	How are you?
0:41.2	I'm doing all right.
0:42.0	We've got some bad storms moving through the area.
0:45.2	I don't know how that may or may not hinder this, our little conversation right now,
0:51.0	but these storms came from Arkansas, so you guys probably got a little bit of it.
0:56.3	We did.
0:56.6	And now it's here over North Carolina, supposed to bring some cooler temperatures.
1:01.3	But in the meantime, it's a lot of thunder and a lot of lightning, and the kids don't want to go to sleep.
1:07.1	Ah, yeah.
1:07.7	Well, I'll tell you what, man.
1:09.1	I always hate it when it turns cold this time of year, but right before the spring. But I always remember that in four months, three months, I will be very happy to have thought that it was cold because I hate July in the South. Oh, it's tough. It's tough.
1:23.3	It's why I go to L.A. every July.
1:26.1	Where it's always, it's always beautiful in L.A.
1:29.2	Yeah.
1:30.5	The rain is welcome because the pollen has been so bad.
	...

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