Grants and Acquisitions

David Free

Acquisitions

A world-class collection of political cartoons and caricatures created between 1690 and 2022 has been donated to University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) Library by Michael and Susan Kahn. The Michael and Susan Kahn Political Cartoon Collection encompasses more than one million political cartoons and caricatures, from 11,000 drawings, prints, ephemera, bound and unbound periodicals, books, and research, in 30 languages, and from 59 countries. The collection is valued at $4.2 million.

One of the Kahn collection’s particular strengths is its caricatures of American presidential candidates from the elections of 1828 to 2020, with an emphasis on the period between 1840 and 1908. One gem is the first known caricature of Abraham Lincoln in print, which was published in the journal Momus less than a week after Lincoln was nominated as the Republican candidate for president on May 18, 1860. The collection also features work from nearly 200 unique American newspapers and magazine titles, including early American political cartoon journals like Scraps (circa 1837–1849), Yankee Notions (1852–1864), The Light (1889–1891), and Puck (1876–1918). Puck, an influential satire magazine, was one of Kahn’s early inspirations; he began collecting political cartoons 40 years ago after UCLA professor D. B. Hardeman pointed out that a cartoon by Bernhard Gillam that appeared in Puck helped swing the 1884 presidential election for Grover Cleveland.

While the collection’s focus is primarily political, there is also a wealth of materials depicting figures from business and industry, the performing arts—including a cartoon of the French actor Sarah Bernhardt—and literature. The materials, stewarded by UCLA Library Special Collections, will be available to students, researchers, and instructors starting at the 2024–25 academic year. Learn more about the collection at the UCLA Library website at https://www.library.ucla.edu/collections/explore/michael-and-susan-kahn-political-cartoon-collection/.

The Library of Congress has added rare materials from the development of the Tony Award-winning musical “Hadestown” to its collections, thanks to a donation from the show’s Tony Award-winning creator, singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell. Items donated by Mitchell tell the story of the show’s development, including draft lyrics written on a yellow legal pad; memorabilia including promotional posters and a postcard from the very first performance of Hadestown as a community theater production in Vermont; a 1950 Gibson TG50 tenor guitar played by the character Orpheus during the London run of the show; and test presses of the vinyl of Mitchell’s original studio recording, which preceded the Grammy Award-winning original Broadway cast album. The donation represents an important contribution to the library’s collections in American musical theater, which include the papers of Oscar Hammerstein II, Jeanine Tesori, Jonathan Larson, Howard Ashman, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin among others.

Adam Kubert—the Marvel Comics artist known for illustrating Spider-Man, Wolverine, and X-Men—has donated an archive of his father Joe Kubert’s comic art to the Rochester Institute of Technology Cary Graphic Arts Collection. In this hands-on educational setting, students and scholars can learn about the craft through the process work and finished art of the legendary DC Comics artist and educator. The Kubert Archive also includes a singular piece of comics history: the drafting table where Joe Kubert drew Sgt. Rock, Hawkman, Tor, Tarzan, and the Green Beret, among other characters. Learn more about the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at https://www.rit.edu/carycollection/.