Livingston Hopkins

American/Australian cartoonist (1846–1927)

Livingston Yourtee ('Hop') Hopkins (7 July 1846 – 21 August 1927) was a prolific cartoonist and caricaturist with successive careers in both the United States and Australia. Born in the American mid west state of Ohio, Hopkins worked as a freelance cartoonist and illustrator in New York from 1870 to 1882, during a period of expansion of illustrated newspapers and magazines in America. His work was published in a wide variety of periodicals and specialty publications. Hopkins' A Comic History of United States, which he wrote and illustrated, was published in 1876. By the early 1880s he had established a reputation as a talented cartoonist and illustrator. In September 1882 Hopkins was visited in New York by William Traill, part owner of The Bulletin, a recently established illustrated journal based in Sydney, Australia. Traill offered Hopkins a position as a cartoonist for The Bulletin, on contract for two years, which he accepted and in February 1883 relocated to Sydney with his family. Hopkins remained in Australia and worked full time for The Bulletin for over thirty years, eventually becoming a part owner of the journal and having occasional cartoons published up until 1921. Hopkins became a major figure in Australian cartooning in the period leading up to the Federation of Australia. Known by the public as 'Hop', his satirical illustrations were a significant factor in the steadily growing popularity of The Bulletin during the 1880s and its influential position in Australian culture of the 1890s.

Livingston Hopkins was born on 7 July 1846 in the United States of America, on a farm at Bellefontaine in Logan County, Ohio, the son of Daniel Hopkins and his wife Sarah (née Carter). The family, with Puritan roots, had migrated from the New England region to the Ohio frontier. Livingston was the thirteenth of fourteen children. His family were Methodists, and his upbringing was somewhat hard and puritanical. His father died in 1849 when Livingston was aged three years, leaving his mother a widow with nine surviving children. In July 1854 the widowed Sarah Hopkins married Silas McClish at Shelby in Ohio. In 1860 the family was living at Kalida in Putnam County. Young Livingston had an early interest in drawing and was educated at schools at Bellafontaine, Kalida and Toledo until the age of fourteen. Hopkins fondly remembered an early schoolmaster named Mr. Gudgeon. When Livingston began to draw caricatures of the teacher, Gudgeon received the drawings with tolerant amusement and encouraged his pupil to preserve his artwork in a scrapbook. In about 1853, when he was aged seven years, Livingston was placed into the care of an older brother and his wife at Toledo (at the western end of Lake Erie), where he attended a much larger school. After leaving school in about 1860 Hopkins worked in a variety of positions, during which he continued to develop his artistic skills, producing sketches and illustrations for private circulation. During his military service Hopkins spent much of his time erecting pickets along the trench lines near Petersburg and "relieving his boredom by drawing". The regiment's period of service ended in September 1864, after which Hopkins re entered civilian life. Hopkins received a job offer to provide illustrations for some of Locke's 'Nasby' publications. His first drawing in print was published in the Champaign Union, with Hopkins also producing the woodcut block used to reproduce the illustration. The artist later wrote of his Champaign beginnings: "So long as I am able to remember anything, I shall never forget the happy days spent in the genial atmosphere of that little newspaper office, nor the valuable experience I gained there". In 1870, when Dr. Miller (of the Toledo Blade) was in New York, he visited the offices of Scribner and Co. who were planning a new monthly illustrated magazine in competition with Harper's Monthly. Miller recommended Hopkins "as one who would suit them exactly to keep up a department of humorous sketches of one or two pages per month", in addition to other work as required. In early October 1870 Hopkins received a letter from Josiah G. Holland, a partner at Scribner and Co. and editor of the magazine then in the process of being established. Holland wrote enquiring about Hopkins' employment situation and offering the possibility of a job at the magazine. After an exchange of correspondence Hopkins was offered a position at the new magazine, to be called Scribner's Monthly, which he promptly accepted. When Hopkins arrived at the offices of Scribner and Co. in New York, Holland was absent and the young cartoonist was received by the business partner, Roswell Smith, "with somewhat pompous and rather puzzled cordiality". Hopkins was then placed in a clerical position in the business department, on a salary of twelve dollars a week, and arrangements were made for him to study under a drawing teacher for two nights a week, at his own expense. The drawing teacher was a German artist named Augustus Will, who taught illustration according to the 'Dupuis method', with its emphasis on mastering the principles of perspective. During this period the woodblock process of image reproduction was replaced by the introduction and development of commercial photo engraving techniques, resulting in a more faithful representation of the original artwork. Many of the new periodicals addressed particular market niches, attracting advertising that kept the magazine's price low. The growth of railroads, public libraries and the postal service led to increased nation wide access to the publications. An early commission that Hopkins received was to provide sixteen chapter illustrations for Cervantes' The Adventures of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha (translated by Peter Motteux), published in 1870 by Hurst and Co. of New York. Hopkins was commissioned through the publisher George Carleton to illustrate Josh Billings' Farmer's Allminax, first published in 1870. The artist and the humourist Henry Shaw (who wrote under the name 'Josh Billings') became friends and Hopkins continued to illustrate the popular annual Allminax until its final edition in 1879. The Farmer's Allminax series were compiled in Shaw's Old Probability, published in 1879. In October 1872 the first daily illustrated newspaper, The Daily Graphic, was commenced in New York City, employing a new photo lithograhic process for its illustrations. Hopkins was invited to join the staff of the new journal, but declined the offer as, in his own words, he was "becoming more and more confirmed in the happy go lucky habits of a free lance". He eventually entered into an agreement with the newspaper management to contribute to The Daily Graphic "on a space rate basis". In 1875 the Daily Graphic published a booklet titled Bessie Turner's Testimony based on the testimony of Bessie Turner in the trial for adultery of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in the Brooklyn City Court during the first six months of 1875. The booklet featured a fold out strip of comic illustrations by Hopkins. On 11 September 1875 a cartoon sequence by Hopkins, titled 'Professor Tigwissel's Burglar Alarm', was published in The Daily Graphic, considered to be an early example of a comic strip in an American newspaper. In the lead up to the centennial celebrations of American independence Hopkins suggested to the publisher George Carleton that a "book of facetiae bearing upon American history, composed and illustrated by my modest self and published by him, would make both our fortunes". Carleton agreed to the idea and a deal was struck, with Hopkins to receive fifteen percent of the gross sales (with the first thousand copies to be exempt from the author's royalty). Livingston Hopkins' A Comic History of United States was published by G. W. Carleton and Co. of New York in 1876, released "in good time" for the Centennial International Exhibition held in Philadelphia. Press copies of the book were sent out for review, but "there were few favourable notices". Some reviewers attacked the book as being "devoid of respect for national sentiments". A review of the book in the Portland Daily Press found much of the text lacking in comic effect: "Occasionally a page is enlivened by a bit of humour, but for the most part the volume is as dreary and not half as instructive as a patent office report". However, the reviewer was more impressed by the illustrations, finding them "decidedly more entertaining than those which appear in the government volume, and some of them are really mirth provoking". Sales of the book was so poor that Hopkins received no author's royalty from the publisher. A year or two after it was originally published a British publisher, Cassell, Petter, Galpin and Co., through their branch office in New York, offered to republish A Comic History of United States. The book was released at a reduced price and "had a steady sale", such that Hopkins was occasionally sent a royalty check "for several years" after coming to Australia. Hopkins also contributed illustrations published in books for children such as The Children's Funny Book (1879) and Child Lore (1882), both published by D. Lothrop & Co. Hopkins' artwork appeared in Hawk eyes, "a volume of collected humorous stories and essays" by Robert Burdette, published in 1879 by George Carleton. He also illustrated Three Wise Old Couples, written by Elizabeth T. Corbett and published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. in 1881. Hopkins also received commissions to provide illustrations for editions of classic literature. In addition to his work for Don Quixote in 1870, he also illustrated editions of Gulliver's Travels, Baron Munchausen, and Washington Irving's Knickerbocker's History of New York.

In September 1882 William Traill travelled by steamer from Sydney, Australia, to San Francisco. Traill was the managing director and principal shareholder of the Sydney based illustrated journal, The Bulletin. He arrived in America on a mission to secure the services for the magazine of "a humorous artist of the first rank". Traill and his partner, J. F. Archibald, were admirers of the cartoons and illustrations featured in American illustrated journals. In Traill's words: "I determined to make a desperate effort to engage and bring to Australia some one of the many clever comic draughtsmen whose work embellished various Yankee papers which we received regularly". After an unsuccessful attempt to entice George Keller of San Francisco's The Wasp magazine, Traill crossed the continent by rail to New York City. In New York Traill interviewed artists whose work he admired, including James Wales of Judge and Frederick Opper of Puck. Traill also had an appreciation for Livingston Hopkins' illustrations, whose work he had seen in St. Nicholas and The Daily Graphic. He wrote to Harriet explaining the situation and requested that she reply by wire. When Hopkins received the telegram from his wife, it read: "Accept Australia". The artist then signed the agreement and began preparations for travel to Australia. The family found temporary accommodation near the top of William Street in Sydney and Hopkins was provided with a studio on Bond Street, near Circular Quay. On 12 February 1883 he signed a three year contract with The Bulletin. Livingston Hopkins' appointment to The Bulletin staff was announced in the 12 May 1883 issue in conjunction with publicising the "new series" of the magazine to be inaugurated in the issue of the following week. The revamped magazine was to consist of 24 pages, "printed throughout from entirely new type, and embellished by the addition of numerous unique illustrations". Hopkins was described as "a gentleman who, as a genuine humourist with the pencil, is not excelled, and perhaps not equalled by any living artist". The artist's services had been secured, as was described, "at an expense unprecedented by the oldest and most wealthy newspaper proprietories on this side of the equator". Illustrations by Hopkins featured prominently in the first issue of the "New Series" Bulletin on 19 May 1883, including two full page cartoons. In addition to engaging a cartoonist during his trip to America, Traill had also sought to introduce modern methods of image reproduction at The Bulletin. While he was in San Francisco he had engaged "a competent young man to do the mechanical work of reproducing drawings by means of zincography". In New York Traill had acquired some rudimentary knowledge of the intricate process of producing a photo engraved plate and had obtained manuals on the art. However, after many attempts at The Bulletin to master the process, with unsatisfactory results, Hopkins suggested to Traill that expert photo engraving technicians be sought. Two men were engaged from America, the etcher Tom Gleason and a plate maker from New York, Charles Buckland Shugg. Their arrival "put an end to all this fumbling in the dark" and heralded a new era in the reproduction of cartoons and illustrations in Australian newspapers and magazines.