In a textbook case of pop culture archaeology uncovering a forgotten pioneer, Nancy Goldstein’s Jackie Ormes: The First African-American Woman Cartoonist (Univ. of Michigan) offers a fascinating look at a comics trailblazer whose name and works have largely fallen through the cracks of time and memory. In fact, if not for Goldstein’s keen interest in doll collecting, Ormes may have stayed mostly forgotten.
Goldstein is a serious collector who also researches and writes on the history and social context of the dolls she collects. While researching the origins of the Patty-Jo doll—a popular toy from the late 1940s modeled to resemble a little black girl—Goldstein discovered the charming toy was a tie-in to Patty-Jo ’n’ Ginger, an obscure comic strip syndicated in such African-American newspapers as the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender. Her curiosity piqued, Goldstein searched for information on the doll’s marketing and uncovered the legacy of Jackie Ormes, a prolific African-American female cartoonist whose life and work stood in stark contrast to the stereotypical depiction of blacks generally seen in popular entertainment and accepted by the public.
“When I researched Jackie’s work on microfilm, I was originally just interested in how Patty-Jo ’n’ Ginger related to the Patty-Jo doll,” said Goldstein. “But then I began to really pay attention to the content of the cartoons.” Goldstein explained that Ormes’s “cute little gag panels” revealed a distinctly leftist point of view that spoke openly and critically about U.S. foreign policy. Goldstein said Ormes’s cartoons addressed “environmental concerns, the arms buildup, voter awareness and race issues, stuff hardly seen in the mainstream newspapers, all done by a black woman. And thanks to her politics, she even found herself on the FBI watch list.”
Goldstein dug deeper and her investigation yielded contact with Ormes’s surviving relatives, who provided more information on the pioneering cartoonist. Upon learning of Goldstein’s interest in Ormes, her relatives shared stories, clippings and photographs, providing the basis for what would become Goldstein’s chronicle of her life and career.
By all accounts a fashionable woman, Ormes was among the elite of Chicago’s postwar black social scene. She mingled among notable political figures and the top entertainers of the period. Elegant and gifted with a wonderful fashion sense, Ormes (1911—1985) worked in both commercial art and newspaper strips beginning in the 1930s, crafting the often trenchant Patty-Jo ’n’ Ginger gag panel cartoon. She also designed paper dolls and created two comic strips featuring the character Torchy Brown, an independent woman who took on serious issues and who bore more than a passing resemblance to her stylish creator. The art she did in many of the Torchy Brown strips featured prime examples of a comics genre that would come to be known as “good girl art,” or well-rendered cartoons of stylish and pretty young women.
Largely unseen since their original publication, especially by nonblack readers, the strips were a revelation to Goldstein, who described their impact on her and her inspiration to document Ormes’s life. “If I didn’t do it, all of this would be lost,” said Goldstein. “Ormes and her work were a counterpoint to the mainstream media’s depiction of blacks. Jackie Ormes was a woman who entered a man’s profession, an old boy’s club, and pushed [herself] out [of] a traditional woman’s role,” she explained. “She was ‘girly’ but academic, very sharp, and she could have been comfortable where she was just another commercial artist, but she used her position to speak out and attempt social change.”
The book will include reproductions of comics strips like Dixie to Harlem from 1937-38, featuring Torchy Brown; as well as Candy from 1945, a b&w single panel cartoon about a wise cracking housemaid. The book will also feature 18 pages of full color strips from Ormes’s Torchy in Heartbeats from 1950-1954.
Besides its compelling account of a racist national climate alien to most readers under the age of 50, Goldstein’s book will attract curious cultural critics, casual fans and comics historians with its look at the black press, its infectious admiration for the subject and numerous reproductions of Ormes’s work. The image of a minority woman holding her own in the troubled America of 1937—1956 is a powerful one.
“I really think Jackie Ormes has a lot of crossover audience appeal,” Goldstein said, emphasizing that she hopes the book spurs more study of African-American cartoonists. “I really feel the book can be an inspiration to high school kids, especially African-American ones,” she said. “For those who were there [and saw her work], and for those who missed it, I hope this book will bring her back.”
As the book nears publication on February 19, the New Pittsburgh Courier, the renamed independent black paper that originally ran Ormes’s work, will feature excerpts from her strips at the end of Black History Month in February and through the beginning of Women’s History Month in March. Meanwhile, on February 17 at 9 p.m., Goldstein will be interviewed by critic Donna Seaman on Chicago’s WBEZ radio station. Goldstein will also speak on Ormes at DePaul University in April and be a keynote speaker in late May at the National Cartoonists Association meeting in New Orleans.
UMP senior executive editor LeAnn Fields said she had never heard of Ormes until Goldstein brought the cartoonist to her attention. “Ormes was a pioneer, and the story of her life and career was immediately appealing. Then Nancy showed me Ormes's cartoons, which are both beautifully drawn and striking in their commentary on politics and race relations in the 1940s and '50s. Add to that the story of the Patty-Jo doll that Ormes designed and made popular, and I knew we had to pursue this biography.”
