Joseph
Keppler,
a cartoonist working for Frank Leslie's
Illustrated established Puck
Magazine in 1876. The name of the magazine was taken from the
elfin character in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Up
until this time, American humorous journals had been modeled on Punch
Magazine. However, Keppler refused to do this and created
a different type of magazine. Each week the front-cover of the magazine
featured a different cartoon. The centerfold and front and back covers
were also in colour.
Puck started as a German-language weekly but an English version
appeared the following year in March, 1877. The 16 page magazine sold
for ten cents. For several years the English language magazine operated
at a loss and was subsidized by the German version. However, circulation
gradually increased and by the early 1880s Keppler was selling over
80,000 copies a week.
The drawing on the front page of Puck and the double-spread
in the middle were political in character, while the one on the back
cover usually dealt with social issues. Joseph
Keppler had traditional views on the role of women and never tired
of poking fun at those involved in the campaign for women's
suffrage. Nor did he show much sympathy for the emerging trade
union movement.
At first Keppler drew all the cartoons for Puck. Later
Keppler recruited several talented artists including Frederick
Opper, James Wales, Livingston
Hopkins, Eugene Zimmerman and Bernard
Gillam. It has been argued that Keppler had a great influence
on the artistic development of these cartoonists.
Keppler gave certain politicians a hard time in his magazine. Ulysses
Grant was attacked for his drinking whereas Rutherford
Hayes was criticised for his decision to ban drink from the table
in the White House. It has been argued that Puck played a significant
role in ensuring that Grover Cleveland
defeated James Blaine in the 1884 presidential
election. Bernard Gillam portrayed Blaine
as the tattooed man. On Blaine's body was engraved details of charges
of corruption made by his political past. Blaine threatened to sue
but was persuaded by his political friends to back down.
Keppler also disapproved of religious hypocrisy. Puck included several
cartoons that suggested that the accusations against the preacher,
Henry War Beecher, were true. The magazine
was also hostile to the Catholic Church
and Leo XIII was portrayed unsympathetically after becoming the new
pope in 1878. Joseph Pulitzer was another
target and responded by trying to buy the magazine.
Joseph Keppler died in 1894 and the magazine
was taken over by his son, Joseph Keppler Jr., who was also an cartoonist.
Harry Leon Wilson became editor until being replaced in 1904 by John
K. Bangs, the former editor of Harper's
Weekly.
The magazine
opposed Theodore Roosevelt and William
Taft and supported Woodrow Wilson
in 1912. Keppler belied that the United States should fully support
the Allies during the First
World War. This was reinforced by the employment of Louis
Raemaekers who highlighted German atrocities
that had been committed in Germany.
The magazine was purchased by William Randolph
Hearst in 1917. The magazine became a fortnightly in 1917 and
a monthly in March, 1918. This failed to increase sales and Hearst
closed Puck
in September, 1918.
Joseph Keppler, Puck,
(March, 1877)
(1)
Brander Matthews, Scribner's Magazine
(September, 1896)
At first Joseph Keppler did not
care for politics. But he soon saw how great an influence might be
wielded by the editor of a comic paper who would accompany the political
cartoon with persuasive comment; and with the perception came a sense
of his own responsibility. He began at once to reason out for himself
the principles of political action. He did his own thinking in politics
as in literature.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
