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| 1 [1898] The Bee, Vol. 1, No. 1, May 16 |
“He is much given to exploration and adventure.Has prospected and operated mines throughout the northwest; broken the world’srecords in a gas balloon; constructed and operated aeroplanes, and killed allmanner of big and small game in North and Central America. He is an experthorseman, and an expert rifle, pistol and shotgun man.” – Cartoons Magazine,1915
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| 2 [1906] John Campbell Cory portrait |
JOHN Campbell Cory was bornSeptember 11, 1867, in Waukegan, Illinois to Benjamin Sayre Cory, Jr. and Jessie S.(MacDougal) Cory. There were six children. The first child, Benjamin Sayre III(1865-75), died of scarlet fever at the age of 10. Next was John Campbell Cory,two years younger than Benjamin. Robert MacDougal Cory was born on August 24,1870, married , and was working at the East Helena Smelter in Montana by 1897.
Agnes L. Cory was bornSeptember 1, 1872, and died in New Jersey in November 1900. John Campbell Cory's sister Fanny Young Cory wasborn at Waukegan in October 1877. She was married to Frederick Cooney at Helena,Montana on April 12, 1904. She had 4 children, one of whom died in infancy.Fanny Young Cory’s famous King Features comic strip Little Miss Muffet ran from 1935 to 1956. She died July 28, 1972.
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| 3 [1930] Fanny Young Cory |
“My early interest in art began with intenseadmiration for my brother Jack. It was he who made possible the instruction Ireceived in the Metropolitan School of Art in New York and also at the ArtStudents’ League. By the time I was 19 years old I was earning my own way withan occasional lift from him.” – ‘My Own Story by Fanny Y. Cory,’ IndianapolisStar, 1930
The sixth child was son McKenzie Cory who was 2 months old in June 1880.
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| 4 [1906] Us Fellers, written by Izola L. Forrester |
There was one othercartoonist in the family. He was a cousin, Benjamin Cory Kilvert (1879-1946), from the Canadianbranch of the Cory’s. He was close in age to Fanny Young Cory and may have drawn inspiration from his uncle’s career.He was an illustrator of children’s books, newspaper supplements and magazine articles. In 1908 he drew a full-page comic strip called Muffy Shuffles about a poor city girl trying and failing to hold a variety of jobs.Other comic strips were Buddy Spilliken’s Diary (1908), and Dorothy and the Killies (1914-15).As B. Cory Kilvert his cartoons appeared in the New York Herald, the New York Journal, Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator, and Life magazine.
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| 5 [1908] Muffy Shuffles, June 14 |
The fine artist and photographer Kate Cory (1861-1958) was also related to the Cory’s.
John Campbell Cory’s first known employmentwas as an architect’s assistant in Chicago in 1881. In 1882 he was employed assame, this time in New York City. Cory was residing in Indiana in 1884 where heworked on a farm for two years. Then he began working as an animal illustrator,specializing in horses. He worked for some time on the Western Horseman, aperiodical published in Indianapolis and contributed to livestock and turfperiodicals.
By 1889 he was in Chicagoworking as a newspaperman. John Campbell Cory married Bertha Pollock ofMilburn, Illinois, February 14, 1890, at Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois. They never had any children. In1897 he was working in the horse-racing department of Hearst’s New York EveningJournal and was soon drawing political cartoons for the publication. Coryclaimed to have no political affiliations.
In May 1898 Cory left Hearstfor a short-lived New York color comic weekly called The Bee. He was the owner, chiefcartoonist and managing editor. His uncle Charles Dickinson Cory was businessmanager. The Bee ran to twelve issues from May 16 to August 2, 1898. It was discontinued in the fall and Cory joined the staff ofPulitzer’s World as a cartoonist. In 1898 he drew a feature called The FunnySide of Life in Montana. He was the “star man” in the Sunday World’s New ComicWeekly, edited by Geo. W. Peck (Peck’s Bad Boy,) that began in December 1900.
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| 6 [1901]The World, January 15 |
In 1901 J. Campbell Cory was the VicePresident of the New York School of Caricature. Cory drew sequential gags forthe New York World from an address in New Jersey, spent some time at WaukeganLake, Illinois, and then visited relatives in Helena, Montana in 1901.
“I like the (mining) business, and having paidthe price for my education in that line, it is my intention some day to resumeoperations with pick and shovel.” – ‘J. Campbell Cory, Cartoonist,’ by B.O.Flowers, The Arena, No. 194, January 1906
By 1903 he had taken aresidence at Helena where he lived with his father (mother Jessie had died atWaukegan in 1888), brother Robert, uncle David, and cousin James Warren Cory.The 1903 Helena City Directory lists J.C. Cory as President of the KnickerbockerDevelopment Company. On June 19, 1903, The Northwestern Exploration Company,with offices in Manhattan, was incorporated with $200,000 capital. J. CampbellCory of Helena, Montana, was one of the directors.
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| 7 [1903] Columbia Courier, June 12 |
“DeerLodge County: Knickerbocker Mining Company. This company, comprising Mr. Coryand associates, is operating mines near Beaver Creek, across the Missouri Riverfrom Helena, and is shipping high-grade copper ore.” – Engineering and MiningJournal, August 8, 1903
In 1904 the Engineering& Mining Journal reported that “The Standard Ore Co. is in control with J.Campbell Cory at the head.” The same year the Helena Directory listed J.C. Coryas President and general manager of Sun River Mining. He was residing at theMonticello, presumably a hotel.
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| 8 [1905]The World, April 17 |
Sometime between 1903 and 1905J.C. Cory was employed as a “picture drawer” on the Butte Miner. It was probably atButte that he began his association with the comic writer Berton Braley, atthat time a well-known Montana newspaperman. In spring 1905 he left Montana forNew York’s World newspaper where he stayed until the following spring of 1907. Earlier,on March 31, 1906, he had been granted US Patent no. 849,600 for a Golf BallMarker.
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| 9 [1908] The Golfer’s Magazine |
In the spring of 1907 heorganized an expedition to explore territory 800 miles north of Vancouver,British Columbia. He was leading a group of “prominent financiers” through thewilderness in search of land, mineral, water and power rights. The Panic of ’07left him busted and he returned to New York. Cory was member of New York’s RockyMountain Club, formed for residents and former residents of the Rocky MountainStates in 1907.
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| 10 [1908]The Golfer’s Magazine |
“His next venture was in publishing The GreatWest, a monthly publication which he started in 1908. In June of that year hebecame cartoonist with the Cincinnati Times-Star, and it was during the periodof his work with this paper that he began making amateur balloon ascensions. InJune, 1910, (residing in Hamilton, Ohio) he made a flight of six hundred andthirty-five miles in ten hours in a gas bag which, unofficially, broke balloonflight records of that day.
He remained with the Times-Star for eighteenmonths and then became identified with the Scripps organization. His cartoons appeared in the Scripps publications from 1912 to 1914.” – History ofColorado, Denver: Linderman Co., Inc., 1927, Vol. 4, p.502
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| 11 [1912] cover of The Cartoonist’s Art |
J. Campbell Cory’s 1912 book The Cartoonist’s Art (Chicago: The Trumbo Co.) was reprinted in 1920 (New York: The Prang Co.).
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| 12 [1912] advertisem*nt forThe Cartoonist’s Art,November 23 |
In February 22, 1913, Corydeparted for Colon, Panama. His cartoons appeared with text by “Uncle Dud,” anom de plume assumed for his well-known baseball columns. The Tacoma Timesdescribed Panama as “America’s ditch” and “the place where the American nationis CUTTING THE THROAT OF A HEMISPHERE.” His acquaintance Berton Braley alsomade the trip to Panama and on their return the two men teamed up for anillustrated poetry newspaper feature. On March 29, 1913, Cory was in Washingtonstudying the wildlife for a feature entitled Who’s Who in Wilson’s Cabinet.
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| 13 [1913] Tacoma Times, February 3 |
The September 1913 issue ofPrinter’s Ink had this announcement:
“Cartoons and advertisingare to be combined by the Cory Cartoon Advertising Service Company of Chicago.The incorporators are William B. Fitzgerald, Melanie Malzen and J.F.O’Donnell.”
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| 14 [1915] March 22 |
The death of Cory’s father,Benjamin Sayre Cory, was reported on October 19, 1913, in Chicago. In 1914 J.C. Cory wasresiding at Chicago, Illinois. A notice posted in Fourth Estate: A WeeklyNewspaper for Publishers, Advertisers, Advertising on February 6, 1915, stated “JackCory, for years on the New York World, is now illuminating the Chicago Herald’sfront page by his cartoons.”
“During his nomadic career, Mr. Cory hassucceeded in breaking his nose six times in as many different ways, with thecumulative result that it is not much of a nose to look at any more, but as hecomplacently observes, ‘there’s enough nose left to break at least oncemore.’” – Cartoonists Magazine, 1915
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| 15 [1915]Cory’s Kids |
By March 1915 Cory wasdrawing a comic strip titled Cory’s Kids for the McClure Newspaper Syndicateand was staff cartoonist on the Chicago Herald. A 1917 advertisem*nt inCartoons magazine advised “In writing to J. Campbell Cory address in care ofThe Publisher’s Feature Bureau, 417 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois.”
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| 16 [1918] TheShenanigan Kids |
Starting on September 10,1918, Cory ghosted Rudolph Dirks’ daily The Shenanigan Kids comic strip. FromNovember 1918 until his death Cory was cartooning for the Rocky Mountain Newsand the Denver Times. He was a member of the Denver Press Club and with PercePearce of Chicago founded the Denver Academy of Applied Art (1920) which taughtcommercial and fine arts.
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| 17 [1920]The Denver Academy of Applied Art |
Cory died November 25, 1925, inDenver, Colorado, and was buried in Milburn Cemetery at Milburn Illinois. He was58 years old. A Memoriam from an unnamed source was quoted in the History ofColorado, Denver: Linderman Co. Inc., 1927 –
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| 18 [1920]The World, January 29 |
“Like all great workers in this field of art hisbecoming a cartoonist was a gradation from the artist, the humanist in himstirring for expression. He became a cartoonist because of his sense of humorand because he could use the cartoon so effectively in attacking wrong things –and Cory at the bottom of his heart was a crusader. He hated wrongdoing and hissympathies were with the weak and undefended. In his day, a full generationago, Cory stood at the very head of American cartoonists and his cartoonsbecame part of national political history.”
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| 19 [1906]The World, January 11 |
The Bee cover image courtesyRichard Samuel West atPeriodyssey.
Cory’s Kids page courtesy Alfredo Castelli.
