Frederick Burr Opper
Encyclopedia
Frederick Burr Opper is regarded as one of the pioneers of American newspaper
History of American newspapers
The history of American newspapers goes back to the 17th century with the publication of the first colonial newspapers.-Colonial period:-The New England Courant:...

 comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

s, best known for his comic strip Happy Hooligan
Happy Hooligan
Happy Hooligan was a popular and influential early American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper.Happy Hooligan, the first major comic strip by already celebrated cartoonist Opper, debuted with a Sunday strip on March 11, 1900 in the William Randolph Hearst newspapers, and was one of the first...

. His comic characters were featured in magazine gag cartoon
Gag cartoon
A gag cartoon is most often a single-panel cartoon, usually including a hand-lettered or typeset caption beneath the drawing. A pantomime cartoon carries no caption...

s, covers, political cartoon
Editorial cartoon
An editorial cartoon, also known as a political cartoon, is an illustration containing a commentary that usually relates to current events or personalities....

s and comic strips for six decades.

Born to Austrian-American
Austrian-American
Austrian Americans are Americans of Austrian descent. According to the 2000 US census, there are 735,128, or 0.3% Americans of full or partial Austrian descent. The states with the largest Austrian American populations are New York , California , Pennsylvania , Florida and New Jersey...

 immigrants Lewis and Aurelia Burr Oppers in Madison, Ohio
Madison, Ohio
Madison is a village in Lake County, Ohio, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the village population was 2,921.-Geography:Madison is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all of it land....

, Frederick was the eldest of three children. At the age of 14, he dropped out of public school to work as a printer's apprentice at the local Madison Gazette, and at 16, he moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 where he worked in a store and continued to draw. He studied briefly at Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...

, followed by a short stint as pupil and assistant to illustrator Frank Beard.

Opper's first cartoon was published in Wild Oats in 1876, followed by cartoons and illustrations in Scribner’s Monthly
Scribner’s Monthly
Scribner's Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine for the People was an American literary periodical published from 1870 until 1881.-History:Charles Scribner I, Andrew Armstrong, Arthur Peabody, Edward Seymour, Josiah Gilbert Holland, and Roswell Smith established "Scribner & Co." on July 19, 1870 to...

and St. Nicholas Magazine
St. Nicholas Magazine
St. Nicholas Magazine was a popular children's magazine, founded by Scribner's in 1873. The first editor was Mary Mapes Dodge, who continued her association with the magazine until her death in 1905. Dodge published work by the country's best writers, including Louisa May Alcott, Francis Hodgson...

. He worked as illustrator at Frank Leslie's Weekly
Frank Leslie's Weekly
Frank Leslie's Weekly, later often known in short as Leslie's Weekly, was an American illustrated literary and news magazine founded in 1852 and continuing publication well into the 20th century. As implied by its name, it was published weekly, on Tuesdays. Its first editor was John Y. Foster...

from 1877 to 1880. Opper was then hired to draw for Puck
Puck (magazine)
Puck was America's first successful humor magazine of colorful cartoons, caricatures and political satire of the issues of the day. It was published from 1871 until 1918.-History:...

by publishers Joseph Keppler and Adolph Schwarzmann. He stayed with Puck for 18 years, drawing everything from spot illustrations to chromolithograph covers.

Opper married Nellie Barnett on May 18, 1881. They had three children, Lawrence, Anna and Sophia.

Happy Hooligan

In 1899, Opper accepted an offer by William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...

 for a position with the New York Journal
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...

. His Happy Hooligan strip first appeared in Hearst's "New York Journal" in 1900, and it ran until 1932. Hooligan was a tramp with a little tin can hat whose gentle simplicity and bumbling good nature made him a success. On Happy's 30th birthday, Opper threw a party attended by President Hoover, former President Coolidge, Charles Schwab, Alfred E. Smith and others.

Opper's other popular strips were Alphonse and Gaston, And Her Name Was Maud
And Her Name Was Maud
And Her Name Was Maud was a comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper. It first appeared in the Hearst newspapers on July 24, 1904. After work as a magazine cartoonist, Opper was hired by Hearst in 1899 to draw comic strips for the New York Journal, launching Happy Hooligan, Alphonse and Gaston and And...

, Howsan Lott and Our Antediluvian Ancestors. Beginning in 1904, Opper drew And Her Name Was Maud, about the kicking mule Maud, into comic strips, books and animation. On May 23, 1926, he positioned And Her Name Was Maud as the topper
Topper (comic strip)
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.Toppers usually were drawn...

 to Happy Hooligan, where it ran until both strips came to a conclusion on October 14, 1932.

Political cartoons

Opper drew influential political cartoons supporting Hearst's campaign against the "trusts"
Trust (19th century)
A special trust or business trust is a business entity formed with intent to monopolize business, to restrain trade, or to fix prices. Trusts gained economic power in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some, but not all, were organized as trusts in the legal sense...

 with characters "Willie and Teddy", depicting William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...

 and Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

, "Willie and his Papa", satirizing McKinley and "Papa Trusts", and "Nursie", a depiction of Cleveland industrialist Mark Hanna
Mark Hanna
Marcus Alonzo "Mark" Hanna was a United States Senator from Ohio and the friend and political manager of President William McKinley...

. Opper's other characters included Mr. Common Man, which is believed to be the origin of John Q. Public
John Q. Public
John Q. Public is a generic name in the United States to denote a hypothetical member of society deemed a "common man." He is presumed to represent the randomly selected "man on the street."...

. His artwork appeared in Hearst's New York Journal, Boston American
Boston American
The Boston American was a daily tabloid newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts from March 21, 1904 until September 30, 1961. The newspaper was part of William Randolph Hearst's chain, and thus was also known as Hearst's Boston American....

, Chicago Examiner, San Francisco Examiner and Los Angeles Examiner.

Opper also illustrated books for Edgar Wilson Nye
Edgar Wilson Nye
Edgar Wilson "Bill" Nye was a distinguished American journalist, who later became widely known as a humorist...

, Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 and Finley Peter Dunne
Finley Peter Dunne
Finley Peter Dunne was a Chicago-based U.S. author, writer and humorist. He published Mr. Dooley in Peace and War, a collection of his nationally syndicated Mr. Dooley sketches, in 1898. The fictional Mr...

, and published his own books, including Puck's Opper Book (1888), The Folks in Funnyville (1900) and Happy Hooligan Home Again (1907).

Opper was a member of several New York clubs, and he painted as a hobby. He retired in 1934 due to failing eyesight. He died August 28, 1937 at his home in New Rochelle, New York
New Rochelle, New York
New Rochelle is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state.The town was settled by refugee Huguenots in 1688 who were fleeing persecution in France...

 and was cremated. Cartoonists Russ Westover
Russ Westover
Russell Channing Westover was a cartoonist best known for his long-run comic strip Tillie the Toiler....

 and Alex Raymond
Alex Raymond
Alexander Gillespie "Alex" Raymond was an American cartoonist, best known for creating Flash Gordon for King Features in 1934...

 took part in an August 29, 1937 memorial to Opper broadcast on New York's WNEW
WBBR
WBBR is a radio station broadcasting at 1130 AM in New York City. It airs Bloomberg Radio, a service of Bloomberg L.P. WBBR's format is general and financial news, offering local, national and international news reports along with financial market updates and interviews with corporate executives,...

.

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