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The
Joseph Michael Donnelly Archive of Cartoons and Correspondence
Chicago
Times cartoonist 1876-1888
Joseph Donnelly was born in Sedgefield, County Durham, England on March 19th 1852.
His parents moved the short distance to Trimdon in 1861 where they ran the local
draper’s shop and young Joseph was educated at the Old School in the village.
In
June of 1871, aged eighteen, Joseph emigrated to America, working his way from
New York City to Chicago doing odd jobs along the way. He got steady work at a
neighbourhood grocer’s store putting up orders and writing up the price cards.
Answering a local ad, he was offered a job at the Chicago Times in 1873 where
he started as assistant to the “cartoon writer”. Three years later he assumed
charge of the fledgling Cartoon Department and during the following decade became
the paper’s political cartoonist with editorial responsibility for all of its
comic illustrations.
In
1888, aged thirty-five, he was stricken with partial paralysis which blinded him
for nineteen months. He was unable to resume his work, never fully regaining his
sight. Latterly he found employment as a manufacturer’s salesman selling hardware
and farming equipment, finally retiring from this successful business in 1913.
He died aged eighty-one on May 30th 1933.
Joseph
Donnelly attributed his entire success to the education he received at that “Little
Red Brick School in Trimdon” and he wrote: “It was here I laid the foundation
stone that carried me through successfully”. It was during the height of his career
with the Chicago Times that he contacted the school for a pen-pal to keep him
in touch with the old village life. The head-master organised a competition and
twelve-year-old Olive Gibson was the winner and a regular correspondence soon
developed between them which was to last for twelve years. When he wrote to his
“Little English Rose” he would often illustrate his letters and sometimes the
envelopes as well. On many occasions he would send the original cartoons from
the paper, once they had been published, to show Olive the vibrant political life
that infused Chicago at the time. Hoover, Smith, Prohibition, politics, sports,
crime and police corruption all featured and Donnelly’s sure-fire wit and alacrity
with the artist’s pen were much in evidence. Most of his work is signed.
Chicago
Police Captain to new recruit: “Do you know the distance from Chicago to New York?”
New recruit: “I do know, and if you put me on that beat, I’m resigning now!”
A
champion of the poor, Joseph Donnelly created the cartoon series “When a Feller
Needs A Friend”, highlighting the woes of Chicago’s poor and immigrant community.
Olive Gibson saved 315 original cartoons (41 “When A Feller Needs A Friend”) and
105 letters, 75 with their original envelopes. 47 of these envelopes are illustrated
with cartoons.
A further selection of original illustrations follows.
Malcolm
Phillips
Director
Comic Book Postal Auctions, Ltd.
