Week 9 Graphic Design and the Industrial Revolution - A History of ...

A HISTORY OFGRAPHIC DESIGNof the publishing firm Harper and Brothers, politicalcartoonist Thomas Nash, and illustrators Charles DanaGibson and Howard Pyle. Advertising agencies firstappeared in the nineteenth century, and many of theconventions of persuasive selling were developed duringthe last two decades, including the technique of projectingan aura of glamour and adventure, the demonstrationof product excellence, and celebrity testimonials.KEY TERMS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE; THE FIRST PAGE NUMBER OF THEIR APPEARANCE IS LISTED)Industrial Revolution, page 144, a radical process of social and economic change from an agricultural society to anindustrial one. The amount of energy generated by steam power increased one hundredfold and replaced animal andhuman power as the primary source of energy. Cities grew rapidly, as masses of people left a subsistence existence onthe land and sought employment in factories, and political power shifted away from the aristocracy and toward capitalistmanufacturers, merchants, and even the working class.Pica, page 145, a standard measurement for type equal to about twelve points, or one-sixth of an inch (Fig. 9-2).Fat face, page 145, a roman face whose contrast and weight have been increased by expanding the thickness of theheavy strokes. The stroke width has a ratio of 1:2.5, or even 1:2, to the capital height (Fig. 9-3).Egyptian type, page 147, the second major innovation of nineteenth-century type design, it conveys a bold, machinelikefeeling through slablike rectangular serifs, even weight throughout the letters, and short ascenders and descenders(Fig. 9-6).Bracket, page147, a curved fill between the main strokes of a letter and the serif.Ionic, page 147, a variation of Egyptian having slightly bracketed serifs and increased contrast between thicks and thins(Fig. 9-7).Clarendon typeface, page 147, a modified condensed Egyptian with stronger contrasts between thick and thin strokesand somewhat lighter serifs (Figs. 9-8 and 9-9).Tuscan-style letters, page 147, characterized by serifs that are extended and curved, with a range of variations during thenineteenth century, often with bulges, cavities, and ornaments (Fig. 9-10).Sans-serif type, page 149, type without serifs (Fig. 9-17).Wood type, page 150, durable, light, and less than half as expensive as large metal types, which rapidly overcame printers’initial objections and had a significant impact on poster and broadsheet design.Compositor, page 150, the person who selected and composed the type, rules, ornaments, and wood-engraved ormetal-stereotyped stock illustrations that filled the type cases.Fourdrinier machine, page 152, a paper-making machine named after Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier who acquired therights to the first production paper machine that was operative in 1803 at Frogmore, England. This machine, which wassimilar to Nicolas-Louis Robert’s 1798 prototype, poured a suspension of fiber and water in a thin stream upon a vibratingwire-mesh conveyor belt on which an unending sheet of paper could be manufactured.Linotype machine, page 152, a machine developed by Ottmar Mergenthaler that could compose metal type mechanicallyby automating the traditional type case. Ninety typewriter keys controlled vertical tubes that were filled with smallbrass matrixes with female impressions of the letterforms, numbers, and symbols (Figs. 9-23 and 9-24).Monotype machine, page 153, invented by Tolbert Lanston, it cast single characters from hot metal.American Type Founders Company, page 153, an 1892 merger of fourteen foundries that was formed in an effort tostabilize the industry by forcing weaker foundries out of business and thereby reducing surplus capacity.

A HISTORY OFGRAPHIC DESIGNPhototypography, page 153, the printing of type using a photographic process, which would be introduced in the 1960s.Camera obscura, page 153, a darkened room or box with a small opening or lens in one side. Light rays passing throughthis aperture are projected onto the opposite side and form a picture of the bright objects outside (Fig. 9-25).Bitumen of Judea, page 153, a light-sensitive asphalt that hardens when exposed to light.Heliogravure, page 153, “sun engraving” method developed by Joseph Niépce using a pewter sheet covered in bitumenof Judea, a light-sensitive asphalt (Fig. 9-26).Daguerreotype, page 154, photographic process developed through the collaboration of Louis Jacques Daguerre andJoseph Niépce, it used a highly polished silver-plated copper sheet that was sensitized by placing it, silver side down,over a container of iodine crystals. The plate was placed in the camera and exposed to light coming through the lens toproduce a latent image (Fig. 9-28).Photogenic drawings, page 154, images made by William Henry Fox Talbot without a camera by holding a piece of laceor a leaf tight against light-sensitive paper with a pane of glass and exposing it in sunlight (Fig. 9-29).Photograms, page 154, a term used today to describe images made by holding an object over photographic paper andexposing it to light, creating a negative image (Fig. 9-29).Negative, page 155, a term coined by Sir John Herschel to describe a reversed photographic image (Fig. 9-30).Positive, page 155, a term coined by Sir John Herschel to describe a positive image made by contact printing the reverseimage to another sheet of sensitized paper in sunlight (Fig. 9-31).Photography, page 155, from the Greek photos graphos meaning “light drawing,” a term coined by Sir John Herschelto describe the photographic process.Calotype, page 155, from the Greek kalos typos meaning “beautiful impression,” developed by William Henry Fox Talbot,it allowed greater light-sensitive paper.Talbotype, page 155, another name for William Henry Fox Talbot’s calotype process, suggested by his friends.The Pencil of Nature, page 155, a book published by William Henry Fox Talbot that featured twenty-four photographsmounted into each copy by hand (Fig. 9-32; see also Fig. 9-47).Collodion, page 157, a clear viscous liquid sensitized with iodine compounds, poured over a glass plate, immersed in asilver-nitrate bath, and exposed and developed in the camera while still wet; a wet-plate process developed by FredrickArcher.Kodak camera, page 157, an invention of George Eastman using a dry-plate process, finally allowing ordinary citizensthe ability to create images and keep a graphic record of their lives and experiences (Fig. 9-33).Gelatin emulsion, page 157, a dryer light-sensitive material used in a commercially feasible photoengraving method fortranslating line artwork into metal letterpress plates developed by John Calvin Moss.Halftone screen, page 158, a screen breaks a continuous tone image into a series of minute dots whose varying sizessimulate tones that can be reproduced with an even ink application of the relief press (Figs. 9-37 and 9-38).First photographic separation, page 158, illustrations printed in the 1881 Christmas issue of the Paris magazineI’llustration. The process remained experimental until the end of the century, but during the 1880s and 1890s, it beganto rapidly make obsolete the highly skilled craftsmen who transferred artists’ designs to handmade printing plates.First photographic interview, page 159, published in Le Journal Illustré, F. T. Nadar’s son Paul made a series of twentyonephotographs as Nadar interviewed the eminent hundred-year-old scientist Michel Eugène Chevreul (Fig. 9-42).Victorian Era, page 161, a time of strong moral and religious beliefs, proper social conventions, and optimism. “God’sin his heaven, all’s right with the world” was a popular motto during this period. Aesthetic confusion led to a number of

A HISTORY OFGRAPHIC DESIGNoften contradictory design approaches and philosophies mixed together in a scattered fashion (Fig. 9-47).Great Exhibition or Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, page 162, , a grand exhibition with hundreds of exhibitors from allthe industrialized nations, was conceived in 1849 by Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. Set in an 800,000-squarefootsteel and glass prefabricated exhibition hall that remains a London landmark in architectural design, the exhibitionwas an important summation of the progress of the Industrial Revolution and a catalyst for future developments.Lithography, page 162, “stone printing,” invented by Bavarian author Aloys Senefelder in 1796. Based on the simplechemical principle that oil and water do not mix, an image is drawn on a flat stone surface with an oil-based medium.Water is then spread over the stone to moisten all areas except the oil-based image, which repels the water and acceptsoil-based ink, which is then transferred to paper.Planographic printing, page 163, printing from a flat surface.Chromolithographie, page 163, patented by French printer Godefroy Engelmann, the printer separated the colors froman image into a series of printing plates and printed these component colors one by one. One printing plate (often black)established the image after separate plates printed other colors.Rotary lithographic press, page 163, perfected by Richard M. Hoe, nicknamed “the lightning press” because it couldprint six times as fast as the lithographic flatbed presses then in use.L. Prang and Company, page 164, Louis Prang’s company name after he bought partner Julius Mayer’s share.Scrap, page 164, printed album cards produced by Louis Prang. Collecting these “beautiful art bits” was a major Victorianpastime, and Prang’s wildflowers, butterflies, children, animals, and birds became the ultimate expression of theperiod’s love for sentimentalism, nostalgia, and traditional values.Toy books, page 168, colorful picture books for preschool children made during the Victorian Era (Fig. 9-65).Harper and Brothers, page 170, the New York company started by James and John Harper that became the largestprinting and publishing firm in the world by the middle of the nineteenth century. They launched a monumental projectthat became the young nation’s finest achievement of graphic design and book production (up until that time) calledHarper’s Illuminated and New Pictorial Bible. Printed on presses specially designed and built for its production, it contained1,600 wood engravings from illustrations by Joseph A. Adams. The firm opened the era of the pictorial magazinein 1850 when the 144-page Harper’s New Monthly Magazine began publication. The monthly magazine was joined by aweekly periodical that functioned as a newsmagazine, Harper’s Weekly, along with Harper’s Bazaar for women in 1867,and Harper’s Young People in 1879 (Fig. 9- 69).Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, page 171, a 144-page pictorial magazine started in 1850 with serialized English fictionand numerous woodcut illustrations created for each issue by the art staff (Fig. 9-69).Harper’s Weekly, page 171, a weekly periodical that functioned as a newsmagazine; it billed itself as “a journal of civilization”and developed an elaborate division of shop labor for the rapid production of woodblocks for printing cartoonsand graphic reportage based on drawings from artist-correspondents (Fig. 9-70).Harper’s Bazaar, page 171, a magazine focused on women founded in 1867.Harper’s Young People, page171, a magazine focused on the youth audience founded in 1879.MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan Foundry, page 175, became a major component of the American Type Founders Companywhen the monopoly was formed in 1892. It played a significant role in the design and production of Victorian displaytypefaces; Herman Ihlenburg was a leading member of their design staff (Fig. 9-75).

A HISTORY OFGRAPHIC DESIGNKEY PEOPLE AND THEIR MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE; THE FIRST PAGE NUMBER OF THEIRAPPEARANCE IS LISTED)Joseph Jackson (1733–1792), page 145, former apprentice to William Caslon.Thomas Cotterell (d. 1785), page 145, former apprentice to William Caslon. He began the trend of sand casting large,bold display letters as early as 1765, when his specimen book included, in the words of one of his amazed contemporaries,a “proscription, or posting letter of great bulk and dimension, as high as the measure of twelve lines of pica!”(Fig. 9-2).Robert Thorne (d. 1820), page 145, Thomas Cotterell’s pupil and successor responsible for the innovation of fat faces. HisFann Street Foundry began an active competition with William Caslon IV and Vincent Figgins (Fig. 9-3).William Thorowgood, page 147, published Robert Thorne’s 132-page book of specimens that had been typeset and wasready to go to press when Thorne died. He was not a type designer, punch cutter, or printer, but used lottery winningsto offer the top bid when Robert Thorne’s foundry was auctioned after his death.Vincent Figgins (1766–1844), page 147, one of Joseph Jackson’s apprentices, he stayed with him and took full charge ofhis operation during the three years preceding Jackson’s death in 1792. He later established his own type foundry andquickly built a respectable reputation for type design and the design of mathematical, astronomical, and hundreds ofother kinds of symbolic materials. His 1815 printing specimens showed a full range of modern styles, antiques (Egyptians)—thesecond major innovation of nineteenth-century type design—and numerous jobbing faces, including “threedimensional”fonts. He dubbed his 1832 specimens sans serifs in recognition of the font’s most apparent feature, andthe name is still in use today (Figs. 9-4 and 9-5).William Caslon IV (1781–1869), page 147, issued a specimen book in 1816 that gave sans-serif type a modest debut.Buried among the decorative display fonts of capitals in the back of the book, one line of medium-weight monolineserifless capitals proclaimed “W CASLON JUNR LETTER FOUNDER.” The name he adopted for this style—Two LinesEnglish Egyptian—tends to support the theory that it had its origins in an Egyptian style (Fig. 9-17).Darius Wells (1800–1875), page 150, an American printer who experimented with hand-carved wooden types and, in1827, invented a lateral router that enabled the economical mass manufacture of wood types for display printing.William Leavenworth (1799–1860), page 150, combined the pantograph with the router in 1834, allowing new woodtypefonts to be introduced so easily that customers were invited to send a drawing of one letter of a desired new style;the manufactory offered to design and produce the entire font based on the sketch without an additional charge fordesign and pattern drafting.Lord Stanhope, (1753–1816) page 151, developed a printing press constructed completely of cast-iron parts in 1800. Themetal screw mechanism required approximately one-tenth the manual force needed to print on a wooden press, andStanhope’s press enabled a doubling of the printed sheet’s size (Fig. 9-21).Friedrich Koenig, page 150, a German printer who arrived in London around 1804 and presented his plans for a steampoweredprinting press to major London printers. Finally receiving financial support in 1807, he obtained a patent inMarch 1810 for his press, which printed 400 sheets per hour in comparison to the hourly output of 250 sheets on theStanhope hand press. In his new design the type form was on a flat bed, which moved back and forth beneath a cylinder.During the printing phase the cylinder rotated over the type, carrying the sheet to be printed. It stopped while theform moved from under the cylinder to be inked by rollers. While the cylinder was still, the pressman fed a fresh sheetof paper onto the cylinder (Fig. 9-22).William Cowper, page 151, obtained a patent for a printing press that used curved stereotyped plates wrapped arounda cylinder. This press achieved 2,400 impressions per hour, and could print 1,200 sheets on both sides.Nicolas-Louis Robert, page 152, a young clerk at the Didot paper mill in France who developed a prototype for a papermakingmachine in 1798; political turmoil in France prevented him from perfecting it.

A HISTORY OFGRAPHIC DESIGNJohn Gamble, page 152, was granted a patent in 1801 for “an invention for making paper in single sheets without seamor joining from one to twelve feet and upwards wide, and from one to forty-five feet and upwards in length.” This machinepoured a suspension of fiber and water in a thin stream upon a vibrating wire-mesh conveyor belt on which anunending sheet of paper could be manufactured.Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854–1899), page 152, a German immigrant working in a Baltimore machine shop who achievedthe first patent for a type composing machine in 1825 called the Linotype machine. On July 3, 1886, the thirty-two-yearoldinventor demonstrated his keyboard-operated machine in the office of the New York Tribune. Whitelaw Reid, theeditor of the Tribune, reportedly exclaimed, “Ottmar, you’ve done it! A line o’ type.” The new machine received its namefrom this enthusiastic reaction (Fig. 9-23).Tolbert Lanston (1844–1913), page 153, the American who, in 1887, invented the Monotype machine, which cast singlecharacters from hot metal.Joseph Niépce (1765–1833), page 153, a Frenchman who first produced a photographic image. He began his research byseeking an automatic means of transferring drawings onto printing plates. He invented the heliogravure (sun engraving),and expanded his discovery by putting one of his pewter plates in the back of his camera obscura and pointingit out the window. This allowed him to make a picture directly from nature; the earliest extant photograph is a pewtersheet that he exposed all day (Figs. 9-26 and 9-27).Louis Jacques Daguerre (1799–1851), page 154, worked with Joseph Niépce and perfected the early photographic process,which he presented to the French Academy of Sciences. He called the printed images he created daguerreotypes(Fig. 9-28).William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), page 154, pioneered a process that formed the basis for both photography andphotographic printing plates by working with objects held over paper treated with silver compounds and exposed tolight. He called these images, made without a camera, “photogenic drawings.” He began to use his treated paper in thecamera obscura to create minute photographic images that had light areas rendered dark and dark areas appearinglight. Late in 1840 he managed to increase the light sensitivity of his paper, expose a latent image, then develop it afterit was removed from the camera. He called his new process “calotype” (from the Greek kalos typos, meaning “beautifulimpression”) and also used the name “talbotype” at the suggestion of friends. In 1844 he began publishing his book,The Pencil of Nature, in installments for subscribers, featuring twenty-four photographs mounted into each copy byhand (Figs. 9-29 and 9-32; see also 9-47).Sir John Herschel (1792–1871), page 155, an eminent astronomer and chemist who was the first to use sodium thiosulfateto fix, or make permanent, the photographic image on paper by halting the action of light. He was also the first toname the process of photography (from the Greek photos graphos, meaning “light drawing”); the reversed image of aphotograph a “negative”; and the contact a “positive” (Figs. 9-30 and 9-31).Frederick Archer (1813–1857), page 155, an English sculptor who was the first to announce the wet-plate process in theMarch 1850 issue of Chemist. By candlelight in a darkroom, a clear viscous liquid called collodion was sensitized withiodine compounds, poured over a glass plate, immersed in a silver-nitrate bath, and exposed and developed in thecamera while still wet. It enabled much shorter exposure times than either daguerreotypes or calotypes, and almostcompletely replaced them by the mid-1850s.George Eastman (1854–1932), page 157, an American dry-plate manufacturer who put the power of photography intothe hands of the lay public when he introduced his Kodak camera in 1888 (Fig. 9-33).John Calvin Moss, page 157, pioneered a commercially feasible photoengraving method for translating line artwork intometal letterpress plates in 1871. In a highly secret process, a negative of the original art was contact printed to a metalplate coated with a light-sensitive gelatin emulsion, then etched with acid. The gradual implementation of photoengravingcut the cost and time required to produce printing blocks and achieved greater fidelity to the original (Fig. 9-34).Stephen H. Horgan, page 158, invented the halftone screen (Figs. 9-37 and 9-38).Frederick E. Ives (1856–1937), page 158, developed an early halftone process and worked on the first commercial pro-

A HISTORY OFGRAPHIC DESIGNduction of halftone printing plates in 1881. He joined brothers Max Levy and Louis Levy to produce consistent commercialhalftones using etched glass screens.David Octavius Hill (1802–1870), page 159, a Scottish painter who teamed up with Edinburgh photographer Robert Adamsonto immortalize the 474 ministers who formed the Free Church of Scotland. The resulting calotypes were laudedas superior to Rembrandt’s paintings (Fig. 9-39).Robert Adamson (1821–1848), page 159, Edinburgh photographer who teamed up with Scottish painter David OctaviusHill to immortalize the 474 ministers who formed the Free Church of Scotland. The resulting calotypes were lauded assuperior to Rembrandt’s paintings (Fig. 9-39).Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879), page 159, received a camera and the equipment for processing collodion wetplates as a forty-ninth birthday present from her daughter and son-in-law. The accompanying note said, “It may amuseyou, Mother, to photograph.” From 1864 until 1874, this wife of a high British civil servant extended the artistic potentialof photography through portraiture that recorded “faithfully the greatness of the inner man as well as the features ofthe outer man” (Fig. 9-40).F. T. Nadar (1820–1910), page 159, a Frenchman whose portraits of writers, actors, and artists have a direct and dignifiedsimplicity and provide an invaluable historical record. In 1886 the first photographic interview was published in LeJournal Illustré and included a series of twenty-one photographs when he interviewed the eminent hundred-year-oldscientist Michel Eugène Chevreul (Fig. 9-41).Mathew Brady (c. 1823–1896), page 157, a prosperous New York studio photographer who invested a $100,000 fortuneto send a score of his photographic assistants, including Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan, to document theAmerican Civil War. This photographic documentation had a profound impact upon the public’s romantic ideal of war(Fig. 9-43).Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), page 161, an adventurous photographer commissioned by Leland Sanford to documenthis belief that a trotting horse lifted all four feet off the ground simultaneously; a $25,000-dollar wager rested onthe outcome. A battery of twenty-four cameras aimed at a trotting horse and equipped with rapid drop shutters produceda sequence of photographs arresting the horse’s movement in time and space, and innovating motion-picturephotography in the process (Fig. 9-46).Queen Victoria (1819–1901), page 161, became queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1837. Herreign spanned two-thirds of the nineteenth century and marked the beginning of the Victorian era, a time of strongmoral and religious beliefs, proper social conventions, and optimism.W. N. Pugin (1812–1852), page 161, an English architect who fostered a fondness for the Gothic style and designed theornamental details of the British Houses of Parliament. The first nineteenth-century designer to articulate a philosophy,he defined design as a moral act that achieved the status of art through the designer’s ideals and attitudes; he believedthe integrity and character of a civilization were linked to its design (Fig. 9-48).Owen Jones (1809–1874), page 162, the English designer, author, and authority on color who became a major designinfluence at the middle of the nineteenth-century. During his mid-twenties he traveled to Spain and the Near East andmade a systematic study of Islamic design, introducing Moorish ornament to Western design in his 1842–45 book,Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details of the Alhambra. His main influence was through his widely studied 1856 bookof large color plates, The Grammar of Ornament. This catalog of design possibilities from Eastern and Western cultures,“savage” tribes, and natural forms became the nineteenth-century designer’s bible of ornament (Fig. 9-49).Richard M. Hoe (1812–1886), page 163, an American inventor and mechanical genius who perfected the rotary lithographicpress, which was nicknamed “the lightning press” because it could print six times as fast as the lithographicflatbed presses then in use (see Fig. 9-51).John H. Bufford (d. 1870), page 163, the major innovator of chromolithography in Boston, whose crayon-style imagesachieved a remarkable realism. Specializing in art prints, posters, covers, and book and magazine illustrations, he oftenused five or more colors, and the meticulous tonal drawing of his black stone always became the master plate. He

A HISTORY OFGRAPHIC DESIGNproduced the Swedish Song Quartett poster (c. 1867) and the graphics for the poster of Grover Cleveland and Thomas A.Hendricks in the 1884 presidential campaign. Hallmarks of his designs were meticulous and convincing tonal drawingand the integration of image and lettering into a unified design (Fig. 9-52).Louis Prang (1824–1909), page 164, a German immigrant to America whose work and influence were international inthe Victorian Era. His knowledge of printing chemistry, color, business management, designing, engraving, and printingitself was of great value when he formed a chromolithography firm with Julius Mayer in 1856. In addition to creatingart reproductions and Civil War maps and scenes, he produced literally millions of album cards printed with images ofwildflowers, butterflies, children, animals, and birds, called “scrap.” He has also been called the father of the AmericanChristmas card for his pioneering work in holiday graphics. Unable to find high-quality, nontoxic art materials for children,he began to manufacture and distribute watercolor sets and crayons. Finding a complete lack of competent educationalmaterials for teaching industrial artists, fine artists, and children, he devoted tremendous energy to developingand publishing art instruction books (Fig. 9-54).Walter Crane (1845–1915), page 168, one of the earliest and most influential designers of children’s picture books.Apprenticed as a wood engraver as a teenager, he was twenty years old in 1865 when his Railroad Alphabet waspublished. A long series of his toy books broke with the traditions of printed material for children and sought only toentertain. He drew inspiration from the flat color and flowing contours of Japanese woodblock prints and was the firstto introduce them into Western art (Fig. 9-65).Randolph Caldecott (1846–1886), page 168, a bank clerk who developed a passion for drawing and took evening lessonsin painting, sketching, and modeling. He possessed a unique sense of the absurd, and his ability to exaggerate movementand facial expressions of both people and animals brought his work to life. His humorous drawing style becamea prototype for children’s books and later, for animated films (Fig. 9-66).Kate Greenaway (1846–1901), page 170, Her expressions of the childhood experience captured the imagination of theVictorian era. As a poet and illustrator, she created a modest, small world of childhood happiness; as a book designer,she sometimes pushed her graceful sense of page layout to innovative levels. The clothes she designed for her modelshad a major influence on children’s fashion design, and she became a renowned graphic artist whose books are still inprint (Fig. 9-67).James (1795–1869) and John (1797–1875) Harper, page 170, used modest savings—and their father’s offer to mortgagethe family farm if necessary—to launch a New York printing firm called Harper Brothers in 1817.Wesley (1801–1870) and Fletcher (1807–1877) Harper, page 170, joined the Harper Brothers firm in 1823 and 1825, respectively.Eighteen-year-old Fletcher Harper became the firm’s editor when he became a partner.Thomas Nast (1840–1902), page 171, an artist-correspondent for Harper’s Weekly. Fletcher Harper hired him when hewas twenty-two to make battlefield sketches during the Civil War. The power of his work was such that President AbrahamLincoln called him “the best recruiting sergeant” and General Ulysses S. Grant declared that he had done asmuch as anyone to bring the conflict to a close. His deep social and political concerns led him to strip away detail andintroduce symbols and labels for increased communicative effectiveness in his work. He has been called the father ofAmerican political cartooning. The graphic symbols he popularized and focused include a number of important images:Santa Claus, John Bull (as a symbol for England), the Democratic donkey, the Republican elephant, Uncle Sam, andColumbia (a symbolic female signifying democracy that became the prototype for the Statue of Liberty). His relentlesspolitical graphic attack of Tammany Hall culminated on election day in a double-page cartoon of the “Tammany tiger”loose in the Roman Colosseum devouring liberty, while Tweed, as the Roman emperor surrounded by his elected officials,presided over the slaughter (Figs. 9-71a and 9-71b).Charles Dana Gibson (1867–1944), page 171, His images of young women and square-jawed men established a canonof physical beauty in the mass media that endured for decades. His illustrations of women were dubbed the “GibsonGirls” (Fig. 9-72).Howard Pyle (1853–1911), page 172, His own work and remarkable gifts as a teacher made him the major force thatlaunched the period called the Golden Age of American Illustration. He published over 3,300 illustrations and twohundred texts ranging from simple children’s fables to his monumental, four-volume The Story of King Arthur and His

A HISTORY OFGRAPHIC DESIGNKnights. The meticulous research, elaborate staging, and historical accuracy of his work inspired a younger generationof graphic artists to carry forward the tradition of realism in America. He was twenty-three years old when he receivedhis first illustration commission from Scribner’s Monthly in 1876 and developed his style with the advances in photographicprinting and the four-color process system (Fig. 9-73).Volney Palmer, page 172, opened what is considered the first advertising agency in Philadelphia.N. W. Ayer, page 172, in Philadelphia as N. W. Ayer and Son, pioneered the advertising agency as a consulting firm withan array of specialized skills. In 1875 Ayer gave his clients an open contract that allowed them access to the real ratespublications were charging the agencies; he then received an additional percentage for placing the advertisements. Inthe 1880s, Ayer provided services clients were not equipped to perform and publishers did not offer, such as copywriting.By the end of the century, he was well on the way toward offering a complete spectrum of services: copywriting,art direction, production, and media selection.