Toonerville Trolley in Verse

"Toonerville Folks," also called "The Toonerville Trolley" or "The Toonerville Trolley That Meets All Trains," was a one-of-a-kind feature and one of the greatest of American newspaper comics, from their inception in the nineteenth century until today. Drawn by Fontaine Fox (1884-1964), it was read and loved by millions from early in its run until reaching the end of the line in 1955. Born near Louisville, Kentucky, Fox matriculated at Indiana University, and though he didn't complete his degree, Fox's vast collection is now at Lilly Library in Bloomington.

As a measure of the high regard in which Fox and his very funny and enduring creations were held, Don Marquis (1888-1937) composed a poem called "The Toonerville Trolley" and dedicated it to Fontaine Fox. From Cartoons Magazine, October 1916 (page 634):

Don Marquis had his own Indiana connection: he was married to actress and Indianapolis native Marjorie Vonnegut (1892-1936).

Original text copyright 2022, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Eugene Mumaw (1930-2006)

Fred Eugene Mumaw was an artist almost unknown in his time and in ours. That was and is an unfortunate state of affairs, for he was a talented man with a unique style. Born on April 3, 1930, Mumaw loved cartoons and cartooning, evidently from an early age as so many cartoonists do. He graduated from Muncie Central High School in 1948 and worked in quality control for Ball Corporation for forty-seven years. Mumaw also created posters for the Muncie Civic Theatre for a quarter of a century. You can view them at the Ball State University Libraries Digital Media Repository by clicking here. A member of St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Muncie, Mumaw died on September 12, 2006, in Muncie and was buried at Elm Ridge Memorial Park in the city of his birth.

Time was when kids who wrote to well-known cartoonists would receive in return a piece of original art. Here is an example from Eugene Mumaw's collection, a daily comic panel of Toonerville Folks, inscribed to him "with the compliments of Fontaine Fox."

Mumaw's cartoony illustrations are marked by simplicity, humor, and a sure touch. This and all the illustrations below were done, I believe, with gouache or opaque watercolor. Update: A comment below indicates that Eugene Mumaw used cut paper in creating his art. I can't say whether all of these illustrations are done with cut paper or with some other media.

Mumaw's art has been selling on the Internet for some time. His undated pinup-type drawings are especially popular.

These might fall generally into the category of "good girl art," one that was popular in the 1940s and '50s among comic book artists and magazine illustrators.

The renowned "Vargas Girl" from Esquire magazine is an example of good girl art. Eugene Mumaw's pin-ups may have been his take on the Vargas-type girl.

To me, they are far more innocent.

And I think you an tell that the artist was having great fun drawing them.

Here's to remembering a nearly forgotten Indiana illustrator, Eugene Mumaw of Muncie.

Revised and undated January 12, 2020.

Text copyright 2015, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Hoosiers in Art

A cartoon by Art Young (1866-1943) showing types from the World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. In the upper left, lounging on a wooden chair, is what seems to be the simplest among them. According to the caption, he is "A Posey County Type on the Veranda of the Indiana Building."

Posey County is the southwestern-most county in Indiana and home of the New Harmony Utopian community of the early nineteenth century. It's the only county in Indiana that touches both the Wabash River and the Ohio River. I have never been there, but I imagine that the farming is good and that the timber is almost southern in character and composition. (Indiana by the way is the only state in which our two deciduous conifers are both native. Baldcypress, a southern tree, is found in Posey County. Larch, or tamarack, calls the northern part of the state home.)

Unfortunately for Art Young, he was not born a Hoosier. He was instead native to Illinois. Young worked for the Chicago Daily Inter Ocean early in his career and created this cartoon for the paper's color section. New York newspapers get a lot of attention because of their color Sunday comics--Hogan's Alley (The Yellow Kid), Buster Brown, and so on--but the Chicago Inter Ocean was the first American paper to print in color. This cartoon gave me the idea for today's posting. It's only right that it should come first.

A cartoon by a native-born Hoosier who was transplanted out of state, and referring to a cartoon by a non-native who was transplanted to Indiana. The native was Cyrus Cotton Hungerford (ca. 1889-1983), aka Cy Hungerford, a newspaper cartoonist in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and more famously, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hungerford was born in Manilla, Indiana, not far from my home. He left Indiana early on but returned there for eternal rest. This cartoon, from fifty-seven years ago this month, refers to Toonerville Folks, also called Toonerville Trolley, drawn by Fontaine Fox (1884-1964). Fox was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but matriculated at Indiana University. That's where you will find his collection of original cartoons as well.

It's time for the county fair all over America, and children are carefully showing their livestock and poultry like the girl in this painting by Norman Rockwell from 1947-1948. Times have changed and clothing, too, but you might still see people like this at the 4-H fairgrounds this month. (Note the 4-H shamrock on the papers under the girl's arm.) Every one of them is a Hoosier.

In 1947, Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) made a trip to Jay County, Indiana, to take pictures of the Steed family and their neighbors. The artist used those pictures as references for his painting "The County Agent," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1948. From left to right, the people in the painting are Don Steed of Redkey; Mr. Steed's daughter Jama; Jay County Extension Agent Harold Riby (or Herald K. Rippey--I'm not sure as to the correct spelling); Larry and Sharon Lear or Steed (again, not certain); Mr. Steed's wife Martha; and hired hand Arlie Champ.

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), a portrait by T.C. Steele (1847-1926). Born in Greenfield, Indiana, Riley was known as the Hoosier Poet and the Hoosier Bard. Steele was the leading artist in the renowned Hoosier Group of the late 1800s and early 1900s. This painting is from 1891. Riley was then in his early forties, and the artist had not many years before returned from studies in Germany. The dark palette and careful brushwork indicate a German influence. Steele's landscapes, for which he known, are much more colorful and impressionistic.

Here is a later portrait of Riley by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). The palette is still dark, but there are rosy tones in the subject's face and hands, and his tie is red. Sargent was trained in France; he is known for his quick, loose, and impressionistic brushwork. Of the two, I believe this to be the more successful portrait. Nonetheless, T.C. Steele was a very fine artist.

Here is the Hoosier Poet on a smaller scale: a U.S. postage stamp from 1940.

I believe this to be a picture of Gene Stratton Porter (1863-1924), author of A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles, but the source on the Internet does not describe or identify the painting, nor does it give the name of the artist.

"The Underground Railroad" by Cincinnati artist Charles T. Webber (1825-1911). Painted in time to be displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, "The Underground Railroad" shows Levi Coffin (1798-1877) and his wife Catherine White Coffin at their work. The Levi Coffin home in Fountain City, Indiana, is a National Historic Landmark.

"The Canal: Morning Effect" by Richard Buckner Gruelle (1851-1914), a member of the Hoosier Group and father of a family of artists in Johnny, Prudence, and Justin Gruelle. The view (from 1894) is of the Indiana Statehouse, and beyond that, of the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis. There is in fact a Hoosier in the painting, a woman wearing a red hat. I saw an image of this painting years ago and I have never forgotten it. It came from a self-taught artist. The canal in the picture is just west of Downtown. My grandfather's brother drowned in its waters at the age of four more than one hundred twenty years ago.

A statue of a Doughboy from a cemetery in Monroe County, Indiana. One hundred years ago this summer, the world went to war. America sent hundreds of thousands to men to the Western Front after entering the war in 1917. They proved decisive in victory for the Allies. Hundreds of thousands were also killed, wounded, or died of non-combat injuries or disease. In 1918-1920, the Spanish flu killed tens of millions of people all over the world. When I see a death date of 1919 for a young person in the United States, I can't help but think it was because of the flu. The Riddle brothers, one of whom may be depicted in the statue shown here, may very well have died of the disease that so ravaged the world.

If you go to Monroe County, or Lawrence County, or places close by in Indiana, you will see much that is made of limestone, including the statue of Joe Palooka at Oolitic. Joe Palooka was created by the cartoonist Ham Fisher (1900 or 1901-1955), a Pennsylvanian by birth but also a traveling salesman. He is supposed to have sold Joe Palooka the comic strip first to the Indianapolis Star. Whether that story is true or not, Fisher seems to have had a soft spot in his heart for the Hoosier State. On June 14, 1948, he was on hand to dedicate the Joe Palooka statue at its original location. (It was later moved to Oolitic.) Near Oolitic is the quarry where the limestone used in the Empire State Building was cut.

Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845) came to Indiana late and life. He died there and was buried there, in or near Fort Wayne in 1845.

Edward Eggleston (1837-1902) wrote The Hoosier Schoolmaster, one of the most popular of nineteenth century novels. It was adapted to this children's version in the 1940s. The cover illustration is unsigned. In 1812, my family came over from Kentucky into Jefferson County, Indiana, about where Eggleston's book is set. Maybe those are little Bear children running around the school.

Speaking of little bears, here is a picture of the kidnapping of Frances Slocum (ca. 1773-1847), which took place in Pennsylvania in 1778. Frances, renamed Mo-con-no-quah (translated as Young Bear or Little Bear), was removed to Indiana, grew up in the Delaware Indian tribe, and married a Delaware man. In 1837, she was reunited with her family, but she decided not to return to them. Instead she lived out her life in Indiana, a place named for her people.

Mo-con-no-quah in adulthood. The portrait is signed. It appears to be the same signature as in the image above.

O-Saw-Se-Quah (or O Sha Se Qua), Frances Slocum's daughter, a drawing that is perhaps also by the same artist. (Note the distinctive B in the lower right corner. The date appears to be 1904.) American Indians were the first Hoosiers. I'll close with the image of a woman who was descended from them and from the white settlers who displaced them. 

Captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Mickey Rooney and Mickey McGuire

Mickey Rooney died last week at age ninety-three. Born on September 23, 1920, he first went on stage at seventeen months and made his first movie when most children his age were just entering grade school. Mickey Rooney's show business career lasted more than ninety years, his movie career nearly as long. In fact, he was the last actor from the silent era to appear in movies of the twenty-first century. An actor in more than 200 movies, a husband of eight women, and doubtlessly a lover of many more, Mickey Rooney said, "I don't regret anything I've ever done. I only wish I could have done more."

Mickey Rooney was born Ninian Joseph Yule, Jr., or Joseph Yule, Jr., or just plain Joe Yule, Jr., in Brooklyn, New York, to a pair of stage performers. Sources disagree as to the name the Yules gave their son. In 1925, Joe's mother took him to Hollywood. He made his movie debut the following year in a short subject called Not To Be Trusted, in which he was credited as Mickey McBan. In 1927, Mickey appeared in his first feature length film, Orchids and Ermine, starring Colleen Moore. Although he was still calling himself Mickey, the young actor had by then acquired a new surname. Billed as Mickey McGuire, he also played a character named Mickey McGuire in Orchids and Ermine. For most of the next seven years, that would be his stage name and the name of his fictional counterpart on the silver screen.

The character played by Joe Yule, Jr., was not the first fictional Mickey McGuire. Joe's Mickey McGuire was preceded by another, a character who was part of the very large and colorful cast of Toonerville Folks, one of the most popular newspaper comics of its day. Also called Toonerville Trolley, Toonerville Folks began in the Chicago Evening Post on February 19, 1910. The cartoonist was Fontaine Fox, Jr. (1884-1964), a Kentuckian by birth but a Hoosier by education, however brief that might have been. Fox attended Indiana University for two years before setting out on his career as a newspaper cartoonist. Landing in Chicago, he began drawing cartoons about the Louisville suburbs he knew in his youth. Those cartoons grew into Toonerville Folks (a title not used until 1916), which was eventually syndicated in more than 300 newspapers. Fox's comic was also adapted to movie shorts and animated cartoons of the 1920s and '30s.

The star of Toonerville Folks--if it isn't the trolley itself--is The Skipper, operator of the Toonerville Trolley That Meets All Trains. The town's residents, every one of them as distinct as the real people they represent, number in the dozens. They include The Powerful Katrinka; The Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang; Grandma, The Demon Chaperone; Aunt Eppie Hogg, Fattest Woman in Three Counties; Uncle "Chew" Wilson, Two-Quid Man; Little Woo-Woo Wortle, Who Has Never Been Spanked; and Uncle "Pegleg" Sanders, the official rattlesnake killer, for, after all, "He don't give a snake much real flesh to strike at!" Also in residence is Mickey McGuire, more properly called Mickey (Himself) McGuire--if you know what's good for you. Mickey is the head of a gang from--literally--the wrong side of the tracks. He's the terror of Toonerville and always spoiling for a fight. Unlike Scut Farkus from The Christmas Story (authored by another Hoosier), Mickey isn't a weak bully--he's just plain tough.

Toonerville Folks was adapted to two series of short subject films in the 1920s and '30s. Dan Mason starred as The Skipper in the first series, which ran for nine episodes released in 1921-1922 and ostensibly written by Fontaine Fox. The character Mickey (Himself) McGuire is not listed by the Internet Movie Database (IMdB) as being in that series. However, Mickey played a lead role in the second Toonerville series, produced by Larry Darmour from 1927 to 1934. The star of that series was the young actor Mickey McGuire, better known to us as Mickey Rooney.

It isn't clear to me that The Skipper or the Toonerville Trolley played very significant roles in the second Toonerville series. Larry Darmour, the producer, may have had something else in mind in trying to compete with Hal Roach's very popular Our Gang series. In any case, the Mickey McGuire films came to an end in 1934. By then, Joe Yule, Jr., was known to millions as Mickey McGuire. You couldn't have blamed him for wanting to hold onto the name. "Mickey McGuire" was Fontaine Fox's property however, and after a successful lawsuit, it remained his. The young actor, then still in his teens, would have to find another stage name. And that's how Joe Yule, Jr., better known in his youth as Mickey McGuire, became Mickey Rooney.

Mickey (Himself) McGuire from Toonerville Folks, a daily comic panel drawn by Fontaine Fox from 1910 to 1955. Born in Kentucky, Fox attended Indiana University for two years before becoming a newspaper cartoonist in Chicago. He retired in 1955 and passed away half a century ago, on August 10, 1964. In the minds of some, two years at Indiana University might not qualify Fontaine Fox as a Hoosier. He may have felt differently, because that's where his papers--including hundreds of original cartoons--now reside.

Text and captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley