Winsor McCay born - September 26, year unknown

Pioneering cartoonist and animator was born on this day sometime in the mid-1800s, though the exact year is unknown. If you want to learn more about McCay, listen to the two-part episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class on him here: https://www.missedinhistory.com/tags/winsor-mccay.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio Hi um Eve's Welcome to This Day in
History Class, a show that reveals a little bit more
about history day by day. Today is September. The day

(00:24):
was September sometime in the mid eighteen hundreds, Windsor McKay
was born. McKay was an influential cartoonist and animator, well
known for the comic Little Nemo in Slumberland and his
pioneering advances in animation. McKay was born Zenus Windsor McKay,
though his birthplace and year is unclear. He began drawing

(00:48):
during his childhood, and he later said that he drew
for himself, not anyone else. He drew incessantly anywhere he
wanted to, and he said he never saved his drawing.
McKay's parents sent him to business college, but he continued
to be drawn to art. He skipped classes to draw

(01:08):
portraits of visitors at a dime museum. He would sell
those drawings and share a cut with a museum. He
did not finish business school, but all the time he
spent drawing and selling his work helped him hone his
skills as a professional artist and it instilled in him
a desire to perform. John Goodison, an art professor at

(01:29):
Michigan State Normal, took notice of McKay and began giving
him private lessons that helped McKay develop skills in his technique, composition,
and perspective. Goodison encouraged him to attend the Art Institute
of Chicago. He did go to Chicago, but he did
not go to school there. He worked at a printing

(01:51):
company in the city, but two years after he arrived there,
he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. There he began working at
another Dime Music him, but this time he was making
promotional posters in art as an employee. Outside of his
work at the museum, he painted billboards and created drawings
in a continuous line. Not long after he moved to Cincinnati,

(02:15):
he met maud leonor dufour, with whom he later had
two children. McKay's ability to do those continuous line drawings
and his talent for drawing things from memory proved useful.
After eight years at the Dime Museum, he began working
for a newspaper called The Tribune as an artist reporter,
illustrating stories and drawing cartoons. He also created art as

(02:39):
a freelancer for the magazine Life, a lot of which
portrayed racist humor, as did other work included in the
Humor magazine. When the Cincinnati Enquirer offered him a larger salary,
he began working there and soon rose to head of
its art department. Some of his most popular and notable
illustrations were done for a series called The Tales of

(03:01):
the Jungle Imps, and they accompanied poems created by the
Sunday editor. He was only at the Inquirer for a
few years before he moved to New York and began
doing illustrations for the New York Herald and The Evening Telegram.
There he began using the comic strip format, which was
new but growing more popular. He wanted to have the

(03:22):
money and fame that came along with having a popular
comic strip that could be syndicated. He found success with
his comic strips Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the
Rare Bit theme, but he was working a lot and
did not feel he was being compensated fairly. He ended
up getting a raised and in nineteen oh five his
comic Little Nemo in Slumberland made its debut in the

(03:46):
Sunday Comics section of The Herald. Little Nemo was immediately popular,
being picked up for translations in Operetta, clothing and games.
It ran in The Herald until nineteen eleven, then in
The New York American under a different title until nineteen fourteen.
McKay also began performing in theatrical reviews as a fast sketcher,

(04:10):
and in nineteen eleven he finished his first animated film,
which featured characters from Little Nemo. McKay went on to
create more films, including the Story of a Mosquito and
Gertie the Dinosaur. With the latter film, he used a
technique he called the McKay split system, breaking the dinosaurs
movements into small parts and filling in the drawings between

(04:32):
the poses. In nineteen fifteen, he created his longest film,
The Sinking of the Lusitania, which he created using transparent
celluloid sheets. He found the success and passion in his
work on animation, but Hirst Publishing, his employer, was not
happy about how much time he was spending on his

(04:53):
outside work. Between his relationship with Hearst and feelings about
the commercialism of animation, he lost some inspiration around cartoons
In July of nineteen thirty four, he went into acoma
and died at his home in Brooklyn after having a stroke.
McKay's work in cartooning and animation greatly influenced the advancement

(05:15):
of the animation industry. I'm each Jeffcote and hopefully you
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
And if you like to learn more about McKay, you
can listen to the two part episode of Stuff You
Miss in History Class called windsor McKay. Get more Notes
from History on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t D

(05:36):
I h C podcast. Thanks again for listening and we'll
see you tomorrow. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
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listen to your favorite shows.