Department of History and Politics

Liverpool Hope University

Module: HISM032

Political Cartooning & Radical Protest,

c.1830 - 1930

Dr. Sam Hyde

Sample

Contents

1

Module Description 3

Mode of Study 3

Intended Learning Outcomes 4

Mode of Assessment 5

Workshop Schedule 6

Bibliography 7

Module Description

2

This module explores political ‘cartooning’ during a defining period for mass politics and

press (c.1830-1930). What historians define as ‘cartoons’ acquired their contemporary

meaning during the mid-nineteenth century. Deriving from the polemical woodcuts of the

German Reformation, European political caricature was developed in France during the

Wars of Religion, before transmitting to Holland and belatedly Britain during the trade

conflicts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the period covered in this

module, cartoons became an intrinsic element of British political culture – embedded within

election pamphlets, posters, and the emergent popular press.

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this module examines the production, function and

reception of cartoons by three important subsets of modern politics – Radicals, Socialists,

and Communists. To varying degrees, these movements developed a vibrant culture of

‘radical’ cartooning to contest their isolation from mainstream politics and communicate

their agendas to the public. Whilst the primary geographical focus is Britain, this module is

firmly rooted in comparative international context to continental Europe, Australasia,

United States, and beyond. In turn, the module will ask important methodological questions

about the use of cartoons as historical evidence; with students encouraged to critically

engage with theoretical debates over the potential value of visual sources and digital

research methods in historical research.

Mode of Study

Structure of the Module

This module consists of five workshops. These will take place on Tuesday evenings between

5.00pm and 8.00pm. Each workshop is researched engaged and will reflect upon electronic

archive material and secondary historiography. In order to be able to participate, students

are expected to read the sources required in advance of each session. Primary source

readings will be posted to Moodle or Google Drive (linked to Hope email accounts). Details

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of the required secondary sources are listed in the Bibliography section below. Students are

advised to bring a laptop or tablet computer to each workshop, which is enabled for the

Hope Wifi network.

Module co-ordinator contact details

If you have questions about any aspect of the module, please contact the module co-

ordinator:

Dr. Sam Hyde

Email: hydes@hope.ac.uk

Room: AJB 073

Intended Learning Outcomes

1. To gain advanced knowledge of the role of graphic satire within modern political

cultures and its impacts upon wider society.

2. To gain comparative understanding of the technological, cultural, & socio-economic

developments that shaped British print culture in global context.

3. To critically evaluate the use of cartoons and the visual as historical evidence; and

how digital research methodologies can affect the writing of history.

4. Based on Enquiry Based Learning (EBL) students will be encouraged to work on their

own initiative, engage with relevant primary sources and historiography, and present

their ideas clearly and cogently in workshop activities and summative assessments.

5. To write a 3,000 word essay (with accompanying footnotes/bibliography).

Mode of Assessment

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There is one component to assessment process:

Essay (100% of module mark)

Students will develop their own inquiry based essay questions based on their interests.

Essay questions must be agreed with the module co-ordinator (Dr. Sam Hyde), prior to the

end of the final workshop.

The essay is expected to make use of both primary and secondary sources. Students should

carefully consider their conceptual approach and use of historiography when contextualising

and interpreting primary sources. In turn, students should critically evaluate how their

findings inform historiographical debates on the subject.

The essay should be no more than 3,000 words in length, excluding footnotes/endnotes and

bibliography. It should be written and referenced in accordance with the Department’s

guidelines (see MA History Handbook).

Deadline: To be submitted via TURNITN by 12 noon on * .

Workshop Schedule

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Week 1: – Part 1: Introduction.

– Part 2: Theory & Practice: Using Cartoons as Historical Evidence.

Week 2: Cartoons, Newspapers, & the Visual Culture of Politics.

Week 3: Reform or Revolution? Popular Radicalism & Graphic Satire

in Britain & continental Europe.

Week 4: Rank & File Cartoonists & the rise of Socialism.

Week 5: Communist Cartoons, Censorship, & the Law.

Bibliography

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There is no set textbook for this module. Consequently, students are encouraged to read

widely and engage with specified sources for each workshop. The bibliography contains

some general texts as well as readings relevant to each workshop. This is not an exhaustive

list, but offered as a guideline. Many of sources referenced below are available from the

Liverpool Hope University Library, but when they are not Hope students are entitled to

access books at Liverpool Public Libraries and other academic institutions via the Liverpool

Libraries Together and SCONUL Access schemes (see Hope Library Website for details):

Primary Sources

There are a number of digital archives and databases that students may find of use for their

essay research. For example:

British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent: https://www.cartoons.ac.uk

Glasgow Digital Library, University of Strathclyde

http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/redclyde/redclyindexcartoons.htm

Oxford Digital Library, University of Oxford: http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk

The following databases are accessible through the Hope Online Library:

British Library Newspapers (19th Century)

British Newspapers (1600 - 1900)

British Periodicals

Illustrated London News Historical Archive

John Johnson Collection

Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals

The Times Online Archive

Further suggestions can be obtained from the module co-ordinator.

Secondary Sources

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Workshop 1

Required Readings

Gombrich, E.H., ‘The Cartoonist’s Armoury’, in Mediations on a Hobby Horse

and Other Essays on the Theory of Art (London & New York, 1963, rev. ed., 1978)

Porter, R., ‘Seeing the Past’, Past & Present, 118, 1 (1988)

Samuel, R., ‘Art, Politics, and Ideology’, History Workshop, 6 (1978)

Selected Additional Readings

Baker, S., Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity, and Representation (Illinois, 2001)

Banta, M., Barbaric Intercourse: Caricature and the Culture of Conduct, 1841-1936

(Chicago, 2003)

Burke, P., Eyewitnessing: Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Ithaca, 2001)

Coupe, W. A., ‘Observations on a Theory of Political Caricature’, Comparative Studies

in Society and History, 11, 1 (1969)

Danjoux, I., ‘Reading Cartoons’ in Political cartoons and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

(Manchester, 2012), 20-43.

Gombrich, E.H., ‘The Cartoonist’s Armoury’, in Mediations on a Hobby Horse

and Other Essays on the Theory of Art (London & New York, 1963, rev. ed., 1978)

Kemnitz, T. M., 1973, ‘The Cartoon as a Historical Source’, Journal of Interdisciplinary

History:

4, 1 (1973), 81–93

Maidment, B.E., Reading Popular Prints, 1790-1870, 2nd ed. (Manchester, 2001)

Mitchell, W.J.T., Picture Theory (Chicago, 1994)

Seymour-Ure, C.K., Drawn and Quartered: How Wide a World for the Political Cartoon?

(Otago, 1997)

Scully, R. & Quartly, eds., M., Drawing the Line: Using Cartoons as Historical Evidence

(Melbourne, 2009)

Streicher, L.H., ‘On a Theory of Political Caricature’, in Comparative Studies in Society

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and History, 9, 4 (1967)

Thomas, G., ed., ‘Politics in Cartoon and Caricature’, 20th Century Studies, Vols. 13-14

(London, 1975)

Workshop 2

Required Readings

Maidment, B. in Brake, L. and Demoor, M., eds., The Lure of Illustration in the Nineteenth

Century: Picture and Press (Basingstoke, 2009)

Roberts, M., ‘Election Cartoons and Political Communication in Victorian England’,

Cultural and Social History, 10, 3 (2013), 369-395

Selected Additional Readings

Altick, R., Punch: The Lively Youth of a British Institution, 1841-51 (Columbus, 1997)

Anderson, P., The Printed Image and the Transformation of Popular Culture, 1790-

1860 (Oxford, 1991)

Bailey, P., Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City (Cambridge, 1998)

Barker, H., Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695-1855 (Harlow, 2000)

Beegan, G., The Mass Image: A Social History of Photomechanical Reproduction in Victorian

London (Basingstoke, 2008)

Boyce, G., Curran, J. and Wingate, P., eds., Newspaper History: From the Seventeenth

Century

to the Present Day (London, 1977)

Brake, L., Jones, A. and Madden, L., eds., Investigating Journalism (London, 1990)

Brake, L., Bell B. and Finkelstein, D., eds., Nineteenth-Century Media and the Construction of

Identities (Basingstoke, 2000)

Brake, L. and Codell, J.F., eds., Encounters in the Victorian Press (Basingstoke, 2004)

Brake, L. and Demoor, M., eds., The Lure of Illustration in the Nineteenth Century: Picture

and Press (Basingstoke, 2009)

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Brake L. and Demoor, M., eds., Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism

(Gent & London, 2009)

Curtis, G., Visual Words: Art and the Material Book in Victorian England (Aldershot, 2002)

Curtis, L.P., Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature (Newton Abbot, 1971)

Dickinson, H.T., Caricatures and the Constitution, 1760-1832 (Cambridge, 1986)

Donald, D., The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (London, 1996)

Dyer, G., British Satire and the Politics of Style, 1789-1832 (Cambridge, 1997)

Gatrell, V., City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London (London, 2006)

George, M.D., English Political Caricature: A Study of Opinion and Propaganda, 2 Vols.

(Oxford, 1959)

George, M.D., Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire (London, 1967)

Hallett, M.L., The Spectacle of Difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth

(London, 1999)

James, L., ‘Cruikshank and Early Victorian Caricature’, History Workshop Journal, 6 (1978)

Kunzle, D., ‘The First Ally Sloper: The Earliest Popular Cartoon Character as a Satire on the

Victorian Work Ethic’, Oxford Art Journal, 8, 1 (1985)

Kunzle, D., History of the Comic Strip, Volume 2: The Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, 1990)

Leary, P., The Punch Brotherhood: Table Talk and Print Culture in Mid-Victorian London

(London, 2010)

Martin, R.B., The Triumph of Wit: A Study of Victorian Comic Theory (Oxford, 1974)

McCreery, J. C., The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth-Century England

(London, 2004)

Nead, L., The haunted gallery: painting, photography, film c. 1900 (Yale, 2007)

Price, R.G.G., A History of Punch (London, 1957)

Rieger, B., Technology & Culture of Modernity in Britain and Germany, 1890-1945

(Cambridge, 2005)

Simpson, R., Sir John Tenniel: Aspects of his Work (London, 1994)

Sinnema, P.W., Dynamics of the Pictured Page: Representing the Nation in the Illustrated

London News (Aldershot, 1998)

Spielmann, M.H., The History of ‘Punch’ (London, 1895)

Thomas, J., Pictorial Victorians: The Inscription of Values in Word and Image (Ohio, 2004)

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Thompson, J., ‘Pictorial Lies’? Posters and Politics in Britain c.1880–1914’,

Past and Present, (2007) 197, 1, 177-210.

Wiener, J.H., The War of the Unstamped: The Movement to Repeal the British Newspaper

Tax,

1830-36 (Ithaca, 1964)

Wiener, J.H., ed., Papers for the Millions: The New Journalism in Britain, 1850s to 1914

(London, 1988)

Wiener, J.H. and Hampton, M., Anglo-American Media Interactions, 1850-2000

(Basingstoke, 2007)

Vernon, J., Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815-1867

(Cambridge, 1993)

Wagner-Lawlor, J.A., ed., The Victorian Comic Spirit: New Perspectives (Aldershot, 2000)

Workshop 3

Required readings

Coupe, W.A., ‘The German Cartoon and the Revolution of 1848’, Comparative Studies

in Society and History, 9, 2 (1967)

Kerr, D.S., Caricature and French Political Culture, 1830-1848 (Oxford, 2000)

Miller, H., ‘Radical visual culture: from caricature to portraiture’, in Politics Personified:

Portraiture, caricature and visual culture in Britain, c.1830–80 (Manchester, 2015)

Selected additional readings

Allen J. and Ashton, O.R., eds., Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press

(London, 2005)

Brewer, J., Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III

(Cambridge, 1976)

Chase, M., Chartism: A New History (Manchester, 2007)

Epstein, J., Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual and Symbol in England, 1790-1850

(Oxford, 1994)

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Don Vann, J. and Van Arsdel, R. T., eds., Victorian Periodicals and Victorian Society

(Aldershot, 1994)

Fox, C., ‘The Development of Social Reportage in English Periodical Illustration during the

1840s and Early 1850s’, Past & Present, 74 (1977)

Fox, C., Graphic Journalism in England during the 1830s and 40s (London, 1988)

Freedberg, D., The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response

(Chicago, 1989)

Harris, J., ‘The Red Cap of Liberty: A Study of Dress Worn by French Revolutionary Partisans

1789-94’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 14.3 (Spring 1981), pp. 283-5.

Kerr, D.S., Caricature and French Political Culture, 1830-1848 (Oxford, 2000)

Maidment B., ‘The Satirical Image: Politics and Periodicals, 1820–1837’ in Kremers, A.

and Reich, E. (eds.), Loyal Subversion? Caricatures from the Personal Union between

England and Hanover, 1714-1837 (Gottingen, 2014)

Nash, D., ‘Laughing at the Almighty: Freethinking, Lampoon, Satire, & Parody in Victorian

England’. In The Victorian Comic Spirit: New Perspectives, edited by J.A. Wagner-

Lawlor (Aldershot, 2000), 43-66.

Roberts, M., ‘Chartism, Commemoration and the Cult of the Radical Hero, c.1770–

c.1840', Labour History Review, 78 (2013), 3–32.

Wood, M., Radical Satire and Print Culture, 1790-1822 (Oxford, 1994)

Workshop 4

Required readings

Hopkin, D., ‘The Left-Wing Press and the New Journalism’ in J. H. Wiener, ed., Papers for the

Millions: The New Journalism in Britain, 1850s to 1914 (London, 1988)

Lawrence, J., 'Popular Radicalism and the Socialist Revival in Britain',

Journal of British Studies, 31 (1992)

Jensen, J., ‘‘Curious! I seem to hear a child weeping!’: Will Dyson (1880-1938)’,

20th Century Studies, 13-14 (1975)

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Selected additional readings

M. Cohen, “Cartooning Capitalism’: Radical Cartooning and the Making of American Popular

Radicalism in the Early Twentieth Century’ in D. Bos & Marjolein 't Hart, eds.,

Humour and Social Protest: International Review of Social History, Supplement 15

(2007), 259-74. 35-58.

K. Cowman, “Doing Something Silly’: The Uses of Humour by the Women’s Social & Political

Union, 1903-1914’ in D. Bos & Marjolein 't Hart, eds., Humour and Social Protest:

International Review of Social History, Supplement 15 (2007), 259-74.

Douglas, R., Harte, L. and O'Hara, J., Drawing Conclusions: A Cartoon History

of Anglo-Irish Relations 1798-1998 (Belfast, 1998)

Gorman, J., Images of Labour (London, 1985)

Hobsbawm, E., ‘Man and Woman in Socialist Iconography’, History Workshop Journal, 6

(1978)

Holton, R.J., ‘Daily Herald v. Daily Citizen, 1912-1915: The struggle for a labour daily

in relation to ‘the labour unrest’’, International Review of Social History, 19 (1974)

Hopkin, D., ‘The Socialist Press in Britain, 1890-1910’, in Boyce, G., Curran, J.

and Wingate, P., eds., Newspaper History: From the Seventeenth Century to the

Present Day (London, 1977)

Hopkin, D., ‘The Labour Party Press’, in K. D. Brown, ed., The First Labour Party, 1906-1914

(London, 1985)

Hopkin, D., ‘The Left-Wing Press and the New Journalism’ in J. H. Wiener, ed., Papers for the

Millions: The New Journalism in Britain, 1850s to 1914 (London, 1988)

Jensen, J., ‘‘Curious! I seem to hear a child weeping!’: Will Dyson (1880-1938)’,

20th Century Studies, 13-14 (1975)

Jensen, J., Will Dyson: A Sort of Bird of Freedom (Canterbury, 1996)

Koss, S., The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, Volume 1:

The Nineteenth Century (London, 1981)

Lawrence, J., 'Popular Radicalism and the Socialist Revival in Britain',

Journal of British Studies, 31 (1992)

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Lawrence, J., Speaking for the people: Party, language and popular politics in England,

1867-1914 (Cambridge, 1998)

Lawrence, J., ‘The Transformation of British Public Politics after the First World War’,

Past and Present, 190 (2006)

Laybourn, K., The Rise of Socialism in Britain (Stroud, 1997)

Livesey, R., Socialism, Sex, and the Culture of Aestheticism in Britain, 1880-1914 (Oxford,

2007)

McKibbin, R., The Evolution of the Labour Party, 1910-1924 (Oxford, 1976)

McMullin, R., Will Dyson: Cartoonist, Etcher and Australia’s finest War Artist (Sydney, 1984)

Pelling , H. and Reid, A.J., A Short History of the Labour Party, 12th edn (Basingstoke, 2005)

Richards, H., ‘The Ragged Man of Fleet Street: The Daily Herald in the 1920s’,

The Journal of Contemporary British History, 8, 2 (1994)

Richards, H., The Bloody Circus: the Daily Herald and the Left (London, 1997)

Thompson, J., ‘Pictorial Lies’? Posters and Politics in Britain c.1880–1914’,

Past and Present, (2007) 197, 1, 177-210.

Waters, C., British Socialists and the Politics of Popular Culture (Manchester, 1990)

Yeo, S., ‘A New Life: The Religion of Socialism in Britain, 1883-1896’,

History Workshop Journal, 4 (1977)

Workshop 5

Required readings

Hyde, S. S., “Please, Sir, he called me “Jimmy!”’ Political cartooning before the Law: ‘Black

Friday’, J.H. Thomas, & the ‘Communist’ libel trial of 1921 , ′ Contemporary British

History, 25, 4 (2011), 521-550.

McCloskey, B., George Grosz and the Communist Party: Art and radicalism in crisis, 1918 to

1936 (Princeton, 1997)

Selected additional readings

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Andrews, G., Fishman N. and Morgan, K., eds., Opening the books: essays on the social and

cultural history of British Communism (London, 1995)

Benson, T.S., 'Low and Lord Beaverbrook: The Case of a Cartoonist's Autonomy',

Newspaper Library News, 30 (2001)

Croft, A., ed., A Weapon in the Struggle: The Cultural History of the Communist Party in

Britain

(London, 1998)

Eaden J. and Renton, D., The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920 (Basingstoke,

2002)

Fitzgerald, R., Art and Politics: Cartoonists of the ‘Masses’ and ‘Liberator’

(Westport, Connecticut, 1973)

Kane, M., Weimar Germany and the Limits of Political Art: A Study of the Work of

George Grosz and Ernst Toller (Tayport, 1987)

LeMahieu, D.L., A Culture for Democracy: Mass Communication and the Cultivated Mind in

Britain between the Wars (Oxford, 1988)

Lewis, B.I., George Grosz: Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic (Princeton, 1991)

McCloskey, B., George Grosz and the Communist Party: Art and radicalism in crisis, 1918 to

1936 (Princeton, 1997)

Macfarlane, L.J., The British Communist Party: its Origin and Development until 1929

(London, 1966)

Twaites, P., ‘Circles of Confusion and Sharp Vision: British News Photography, 1919-39’, in

Catterall, P., Seymour-Ure, C. and Smith, A., eds., Northcliffe’s Legacy: Aspects of the British

Popular Press, 1896-1996 (Basingstoke, 2000)

Willett, J., The New Sobriety: Art and Politics in the Weimar Period, 1917-1933

(London, 1978)

Dictionaries & Cartoon Collections

Bryant, M., Dictionary of Twentieth Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists

(Aldershot, 2000)

Bryant, M., World War I in Cartoons (London, 2006)

Bryant, M., Wars of Empire in Cartoons (London, 2008)

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Bryant, M., and Heneage, S., A Dictionary of British Cartoonists and Caricaturists, 1730-1980

(Aldershot, 1994)

Clark, A., Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers and Editors (London, 1997)

Douglas, R., Between the Wars, 1919-1939: The Cartoonists’ Vision (London, 1992)

Douglas, R., The Great War, 1914-1918: The Cartoonists’ Vision (London, 1995)

Douglas, R., ‘Great Nations Still Enchanted’: The Cartoonists’ Vision of the Empire, 1848-

1914

(London, 1993)

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