William Allen Rogers | |
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Born | 1854 Springfield, Ohio |
Died | 1931 (aged 76–77) Washington, D.C. |
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Cartoonist |
Signature | |
William Allen Rogers (1854–1931) was an American political cartoonist born in Springfield, Ohio. [1]
He studied at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Wittenberg College, but never graduated. Rogers taught himself to draw [2] and began submitting political cartoons to Midwestern newspapers in his teens. [1] At the age of fourteen, his first cartoons appeared in a Dayton, Ohio-based newspaper, to which Rogers' mother had earlier submitted a selection of his sketches. [2]
The start of Rogers' career as an illustrator came in 1873 when he was hired by the Daily Graphic in New York. [2] [3] He was nineteen years old at the time. [2] Rogers' job at the Daily Graphic was to help out with the news sketches and at times draw cartoons. [2]
In 1877, he was hired by Harper's Weekly to draw the magazine's political cartoons after the departure of Thomas Nast. [2] [4] The cartoons were dramatic adjuncts that illustrated the magazine's editorials. [5] Walt Reed, author of The Illustrator in America: 1860-2000, writes that while Rogers cartoons "never quite approached Nast's in power, his ideas were strongly presented and his drawings somewhat more skillful." [4] Rogers remained at Harper's Weekly for twenty-five years, [2] and lived in St. George, Staten Island. [6]
After leaving Harper's Weekly, Rogers was hired by the New York Herald, where he drew cartoons daily for a total of twenty years. He occasionally worked for Life too, and submitted cartoons and illustrations for Puck, The Century Magazine, and St. Nicholas Magazine. [2]
Rogers retired as a cartoonist in 1926 while working for the Washington Post. [2] He died in Washington, D.C., in 1931. [1]