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In
the autumn of 1889, Young traveled to Paris and entered the Académie
Julien. He was forced to return to Monroe, Wisconsin, due to poor
health. He stayed in Monroe until 1892, at which time he joined
the staff of the Chicago Inter Ocean. Here he produced the
first daily front-page political cartoon in the Midwest. Throughout
the 1890s, Young also contributed to Puck, Judge,
and Life. He was one of the first artists to freelance to
all three simultaneously. For Life and Puck more so
than Judge, his cartoons became increasingly satirical. Young's
socialist leanings began around 1910, upon his association with
Greenwich Village radicals. His most notable cartoons can be found
in Life, Puck, the Masses, the Liberator,
the Metropolitan, and Young's own radical satire magazine,
Good Morning. He crusaded against sweatshops, firetrap tenements,
child labor, racial segregation, and discrimination against women,
in addition to Socialism's traditional industrial and political
enemies. He belonged to the vanguard of a very active left-wing
movement in American arts and letters. What is perhaps most amazing
about Young - considering his views were radical enough that he
was tried for treason during World War I - is that he was simultaneously
able to create humorous, inoffensive gag cartoons that magazines
like the Saturday Evening Post eagerly and prominently published. In Young's later years he drew less, became bitter about life, and advised both young radicals and aspiring cartoonists. He died at his home in Bethel, Connecticut, on 29 December, 1943. Sources: Buhle, Mari Jo, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Left. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990. Garraty, John A., and Mark C. Carnes, eds. American National Biography. Vol. 24. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Horn, Maurice, ed. The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999. |
Young
was born 14 January, 1866, near Orangeville, Illinois. His family
moved to Monroe, Wisconsin, when he was a year old. He quit high
school before graduating. After selling his first cartoon to Judge
in 1883, Young moved to Chicago, where he enrolled in the Academy
of Design. Young worked for the Daily Mail and the Daily
News from 1884 to 1887. He created what many consider to be
the definitive drawings of the Haymarket Riot (1886) during this
period.
