The Birth of Political Cartoons in England

Political cartoons are a daily staple of newspapers and magazines today. Some can be quite hilarious, while others are at best didactic and completely miss the point. (Mallard Fillmore is a comic strip that takes this idea of missing the point to all new levels of political and cultural obliviousness.) The origins of the political cartoon date back to the 1700s. By the 1800s the political cartoon had nearly reached the level of mania. What happened to cause political cartoons to become so popular? As with so many things, it was the explosion in a middle class; the British middle class in this particular case.

As the British government moved toward adopting a more democratic form and away from the power being vested in the monarchy, politicians began to need votes. Back then in England, and even today in countries that aren't America, voters really had a desire to be informed about the issues of the day as well as the politicians wishing to formulate plans of action to deal those pressing issues. The expansion of the voter base meant that those politicians had to appeal to ever larger numbers of citizens to attain their goal. This was exactly the set of circumstances that was required to elevate political cartoons to the next level. The fact is that even by the mid-1800s there were still a number of British citizens who were sub-literate at best. Trying to figure out the confusion over issues by reading the newspapers was not exactly something that could be easily accomplished. But even those who were totally illiterate could look at many of the political cartoons and figure out what they were saying. The transmission of hopelessly complex issues through the mechanism of editorial cartoons became a quick method of shorthanding ideas that might otherwise be exploited all too easily by corrupt political organizations. Current events and the hot topic issues of the day were more easily boiled down to understandable levels by these talented political cartoonists.