John T. McCutcheon

George Ade (left) and McCutcheon, circa 1894-95

John Tinney McCutcheon (May 6, 1870 – June 10, 1949) was an American newspaper political cartoonist who was known as the "Dean of American Cartoonists".

McCutcheon was born near South Raub, Tippecanoe County, Indiana to Captain John Barr McCutcheon and Clara Glick McCutcheon. He was the younger brother of novelist George Barr McCutcheon, writer of the Graustark books. His son, Shaw McCutcheon was an editorial cartoonist.

Education

He attended Purdue University, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, and graduated in 1889 with a Bachelor of Science degree. At Purdue, he worked with typographer Bruce Rogers on the student newspaper and yearbook. On the Purdue campus, McCutcheon is memorialized in a coeducational dormitory, John T. McCutcheon Hall. The lobby displays an original of one of his drawings, a nearly life-size drawing of a young man.

Baby New Year 1905 chases old 1904 into the history books in this John T. McCutcheon cartoon.

He moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he worked at the Chicago Morning News (later named the Chicago Record) and then at the Chicago Tribune from 1903 until his retirement in 1946. From 1916 to 1979 the McCutcheon family owned Blue Lagoon Island, a cay off Nassau in the Bahamas. McCutcheon introduced Carl Sandburg to the Bahamian song The John B. Sails which subsequently became a standard.

Awards

He received the Pulitzer Prize for Cartoons in 1932. McCutcheon High School in his home county Tippecanoe is named in his honor.

McCutcheon died in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Works

• Cartoons: A Selection of One Hundred Drawings (1903); with introduction by George Ade
• Bird Center Cartoons; A Chronicle of Social Happenings at Bird Center Illinois, 1904.
• The Mysterious Stranger and Other Cartoons, 1905.
• Injun Summer, 1907.
• T.R. in Cartoons, 1910.
• Doing the Grand Canyon, illustrated, with cartoons by the author, published by Fred Harvey, 1922.
• The Island Song Book, illustrated with photographs and cartoons by the author. Self published, 1927.
• Drawn from Memory: The Autobiography of John T. McCutcheon, Bobbs-Merrill, 1950.

External links

• 1908 profile with cartoon samples
• McCutcheon Digital Exhibit at Purdue University Libraries Archives and Special Collections
• John T. McCutcheon Papers (1895-1947) at Syracuse University (primary resource material)
• John Tinney McCutcheon Collection at the University of Missouri Libraries
• McCutcheon High School
• John T McCutcheon Papers at the Newberry Library