From the stock market crash in 1929 through the new millennium beginning in the year 2000, editorial cartoonist Herb Block has chronicled the nation's political history, caricaturing twelve American presidents from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton. He has received three Pulitzer Prizes for editorial cartooning (1942, 1954, and 1979) and a fourth with Washington Post colleagues for public service during the Watergate investigation (1973). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1994 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2000, the Library of Congress named him a "Living Legend" in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the nation. Numerous honorary degrees from institutions nationwide, most recently a 1999 Doctor of Arts from Harvard University, suggest academia has forgiven him for leaving college early to pursue a career as an editorial cartoonist. And well it should, for no cartoonist or commentator in America has done more to educate and inform the public during the past seven decades than Herb Block.
- Re: Âþ»¼ÒHerb Blockposted on 09/28/2007
- posted on 09/28/2007
"We've been using more of a roundish one"
President Harry Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his Far Eastern command for publicly undercutting the president's Korean War policies, and the general returned to Washington, where he and Defense Secretary George Marshall provided conflicting testimonies to congressional committees. MacArthur continued to propose more aggressive tactics against communist China. Marshall argued that MacArthur's tactics would draw the United States into a third world war.
"We've been using more of a roundish one,"
May 7, 1951
- posted on 09/28/2007
Albert Einstein lived here
Herb Block pays tribute to scientist Albert Einstein, possibly the greatest man of the twentieth century. With the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, Einstein left Germany in 1932 to move to America where he took part in the Institute for Advanced Studies of Princeton. He became a U.S. citizen in 1940. Einstein's theories, especially the Special Theory of Relativity, expanded the scope of thinking, revolutionized scientific ideas, and provided the basis for the development and use of nuclear energy. On the basis of urgent appeals and information from fellow scientists in Europe who knew that the Nazis were working on the development of nuclear fission, Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that resulted in the U.S. project to build "the bomb." The cartoon appeared on news of Einstein's death on April 18, 1955.
Albert Einstein lived here, April 19, 1955
- posted on 09/28/2007
Mushrooming cloud
Communist China exploded its first atomic bomb in October 1964, and the State Department warned in February 1965 that the Chinese, under Mao Zedong, were preparing another nuclear test. Although the Soviet Union insisted that the Chinese tests did not pose a threat, Herb Block's menacing, blossoming caricature of leader Mao Zedong suggests that China's emergence as an unbridled nuclear power was, and continues to be, a world-wide concern.
Mushrooming cloud, April 1, 1965
- posted on 09/28/2007
Born in Chicago on October 13, 1909, Herbert Block grew up in a family where art, history, and politics really mattered. His father, an accomplished chemist, also had a talent for writing and cartooning, contributing to such turn-of-the-twentieth-century humor magazines as Life, Puck, and Judge. He also supported his son's early studies at Art Institute of Chicago. He "showed me something about drawing," Herb Block says. His father also had worked as a reporter for the Chicago Record, and Herb's older brother Bill was a reporter on the Chicago Tribune and later the Chicago Sun. During high school Herb Block drew cartoons, and wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper. From his earliest years, he prepared for a career as a journalist.
- Re: Âþ»¼ÒHerb Blockposted on 09/28/2007
When that happy heaven-on-earth day comes, I'd still like to be drawing cartoons. I wouldn't want to see any head angel throwing his weight around.
Herb Block
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