1. Political Cartoons in Utah History and Current Events
The Utah War

2. Today we will learn about Political/Editorial Cartoons
History Objective – We will interpret current and historic political cartoons to learn about the temperament of a different era.
Behavior Objective – We will collaborate with our groups to understand our cartoons.
Language Objective –
We will analyze a cartoon with our groups and write our own summary and response to a political cartoon.

3. Today we will learn about Political/Editorial Cartoons
History Objective – We will interpret current and historic political cartoons to learn about the temperament of a different era.
Behavior Objective – We will participate appropriately, staying polite and positive in our discussions.
Language Objective –
We will analyze a cartoon with our groups and write our own summary and response to a political cartoon.

4. Quick Think – What is a political/editorial cartoon?
With your table group, look through the packet of cartoons on your table.
Everyone will have to gather around to see them.
In 2 minutes, flip through the packet looking at all the different topics featured in this type of cartoon.
Work with your group to draw a circle map of all the features, subjects, and topics they cover.

5. The Importance of Political Cartoons to History
Political Cartoons play an important part in telling the history of a given period of time.
They help us understand the events, people, prejudices, attitudes, culture, concerns, fears, and so on of a particular time period.

6. A Brief History of Political Cartoons
People have been expressing opinions with pictures for a long time.
This ancient Egyptian picture shows a noble as a mouse and her servants/advisors as cats.
What could this cartoon mean?

7. Political Cartoons in America
This picture was created by Benjamin Franklin when the British and the French were preparing for the French & Indian War.
It later became a popular symbol for the American Revolution.

8. The Influence of Political Cartoonists
Some of the artists who have created cartoons in the past still influence the present.
Thomas Nast popularized the use of the elephant and donkey for the Republican and Democratic Parties.
Even our modern image of Santa Claus was influenced by Thomas Nast.
To this day, the Democrats think of the elephant as bungling, stupid, pompous and conservative, while the Republicans regard it is dignified, strong and intelligent. On the other hand, the Republicans view the donkey as stubborn, silly and ridiculous, but the Democrats claim it is humble, homely, smart, courageous and loveable.
----The origins of Santa can be traced to pagan and Christian folklore. Some communities combine the two histories into a fun and fearful version of Christmas: Krampuslauf ( )

9. How Do Political Cartoons Work?
Political cartoons try to communicate powerful ideas.
They often use humor to make a point.
They incorporate important events and people of the period in an easy to understand format that most people can relate to even if they don’t read well.

10. How do Political Cartoons convey information?
Symbols, caricature, drawings and exaggerations used by the cartoonist point out major events, people, and problems of any given time period.

11. Different Sides of the Same Story
Political cartoons are very biased. They are not trying to be fair to all sides of a debate.
They are trying to get a strong reaction from their readers, either to agree or disagree with the cartoon.

12. Economy/jobs

13. Complaints about politics/gov

14. Different sides of the same story

15. Current events/World changing

16. Controversial topics

17. Young people!

18. Bias

19. Steps to analyzing a political cartoon, past or present.
Identify the characters, symbols and objects in the cartoon.
Look for writing that provides clues, cues, and details to understand who and what is shown in the cartoon. Research anything you don’t know.
Read at the caption (if there is one) for the cartoon. Summarize what you think the message/main idea of the cartoon is in your own words. Cite evidence!
Identify the point of view of the artist. Do they like or dislike what is happening? Are they biased? Are they fair to both sides of the argument/debate/issue? What techniques does the artist use to make the point?

20. Terms to Know
Symbolism - an object used for or representing something else
Caricature - a picture ludicrously exaggerating the features of persons or things
Captioning and labels - a title or explanation for a picture or illustration, especially in a magazine
Analogy - a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based
Irony - the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning
Juxtaposition - an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast
Exaggeration - the act of exaggerating or overstating

21. Let’s try to analyze the meaning of a recent political cartoon.
Background knowledge about the time period is important for student understanding of political cartoons. Students need to know universal symbols, such as Uncle Sam, doves representing peace, and so on. They also need to recognize characters of the time period.

22. Historic Political Cartoons
Understanding historic political cartoons is more difficult, but provide insights into the temperament of the time.
If you don’t understand the symbols that are being used, a little research will help.
So, during the Gilded Age, one would need to recognize visual presentations of men like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan.

24. Your students have probably seen political cartoons before, but have perhaps never analyzed them. The political cartoon at the bottom of this post appeared in “The Wasp”, a magazine from San Francisco, on February 8th, You can project it onto a screen, zoom in on the cartoon, and discuss it with your class. Ask the following questions (some of which are taken from the textbook, “Utah: A Journey of Discovery”, pg 179):
What do you think the cartoonist thought of Mormonism?
What does this cartoon tell you about what the country thought about Mormons?
Since Uncle Sam was able to symbolically “kick-out” the Chinese and Mormons, what does the cartoonist think should happen to the others still in the bed?
Uncle Sam was bothered by several minority groups. Mormons were one of them. In 1879, the San Francisco Wasp published a cartoon portraying 5-minorities troubling Uncle Sam: Chinese, Indians, Blacks, Irish Catholics, and Mormons.”

25. “In the 1870s political cartoonist Thomas Nast, an implacable foe of both Mormons and Irish Catholics, penned the question in Harper’s Weekly — 
“Religious Liberty is Guaranteed–But Can We Allow Foreign Reptiles To Crawl All Over US?” 
He branded both religions as “foreign” threats to liberty — The Roman Catholic Church depicted as a crocodile and The Mormon LDS Church as a turtle crawling over the Capitol. [Notice the Turtle looks like the Mormon Tabernacle and the crocodile like the Vatican.]

26. Let’s look at some cartoons from Utah history.
Open your books to page 151 and look at the cartoon on the page.
Let’s go though the steps to analyze this cartoon.
After modeling several cartoons, put students into small groups. They will look at a series of cartoons and follow the steps above to interpret them.
Finally, give each student their own cartoon and ask them to individually interpret the meaning based on the time period.

27. After the Civil War, Nast foresaw America in his “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving” (1869) as the place where everybody had a place at the table. (source:

28. Writing your analysis/argument
Topic/Intro: Make a claim about the author’s message in the cartoon. Write your theory in one clear sentence.
Look for evidence/data from the cartoon to support your claim.
Explain how the evidence/data supports your claim about the author’s message in the cartoon.
Write your argument/analysis in a simple paragraph.

29. Current Events
On the test, you will analyze a political cartoon from the era of the Utah War.
We are also going to do a current event assignment in which you will choose a modern political cartoon.
First summarize what the cartoon depicts, explaining the people, symbols, and so on.
Then respond and give your opinion of the cartoon, its message, the bias of the author, and so on.