Mort Walker on Being a World War II Veteran at Mizzou

Mort Walker, Untitled (Beetle Bailey© cartoon), 1950, ink drawing with transparent plastic overlay (dot screen), 7 ¼” x 18 7/8”. Gift of Mort Walker and Walker Studios, courtesy of Kings Features Syndicate, Inc.

Mort Walker and Walker Studios, Untitled (Beetle Bailey© cartoon), 1970, ink drawing with transparent green plastic overlay (dot screen), 5 ¾” x 18”. Gift of Mort Walker and Walker Studios, courtesy of Kings Features Syndicate, Inc.

Before I get wrapped up in new and upcoming acquisitions, I need to discuss an artist who is particularly near and dear to the Student Center’s heart. More specifically, for this blog I will be talking about ink drawings by the celebrated alum cartoonist, Mort Walker, whose name has been omnipresent at the new building since its opening. Graciously, Walker and his Studio has given the Unions (for the Student Center’s use) four mock-ups of Beetle Bailey© comic strips, two of which are shown above. These are hand-drawn versions of the strips that Walker would have sent to his publishers for reproduction and distribution.

Rather than aimlessly trying to provide a full account of Walker’s life and work, I thought I would couch these drawings in Walker’s accounts of being a student and war veteran at Mizzou. Walker first arrived at the University in 1943, but was drafted only a semester later (at 20 years old) to serve in World War II. While not strictly autobiographical, Walker based his most beloved character, Beetle Bailey©, on a childhood friend, David Hornaday, with whom he shared many life experiences. Indeed, Walker and Hornaday grew up together, joined the same fraternity at Mizzou (Kappa Sigma), and were drafted into the military at the same time.

Like his creator and his clumsy counterpart (Hornaday), Beetle© was also a college student who joined the military not of his own accord (in Beetle’s© case it was an accident). Originally, Beetle© was just a lazy, trouble-making college student at Rockview college, a fictional school based on Mizzou. However, in 1951, at the onset of the Korean War, Walker decided that Beetle© should join the army and this choice transformed an amusing (but somewhat unsuccessful) comic into the hugely popular phenomenon that we know and love today. The first featured drawing from our collection (1950), shows Beetle© as a student at Rockview, and the second (1970) shows Beetle’s© pup-pal, Otto, in the afterglow of having visited the campus.

Mort Walker, Savitar 1943, pg. 41. Although only here a short time in 43, Walker made several illustrations for the Savitar yearbook. They reflect an increased military presence on Mizzou’s campus.

In World War II Walker served in Italy as an Intelligence Officer in charge of a platoon of American GI’s, a company of Italian soldiers, and a German Prisoner of War stockade. Having become accustomed to giving orders, returning to a university setting in 1946 was understandably a difficult adjustment. Consequently, he often butted heads with the Dean of the Journalism School. In fact, eventually Walker was forced to leave the Journalism School due to a disagreement over prerequisites. Nevertheless, Walker still managed to make straight A’s and become the editor of the student run humor periodical, Showme, which famously held staff meetings in ‘The Shack’. Walker’s cartoons for Mizzou publications in the following years (namely in Showme and the Savitar) illustrate what it may have been like being a veteran on campus:

Mort Walker, Savitar 1947, pg. 84.

Mort Walker, Showme, 1948, v. 4, pg. 16. 

Here, Mort (on right) and a friend walk in 

downtown Columbia, feeling pressure to 

re-enlist.

Indeed, being a World War II veteran at Mizzou, or any college for the matter, would have been challenging. The G.I. Bill, which provided federal funding for veterans to go to college, surged enrollment at the university to an untenable level. Starting around 1945, MU could no longer safely house all of the students in its ward. The G.I. Bill brought in 2,800 veterans, which comprised 48% of the entire student population at that time (The Missouri Alumnus, May 1946, pg. 4)! Doing the best they could with limited resources, the university used army surplus materials to build districts of emergency barrack-style housing for displaced students, affectionately dubbed ‘blue-campus’.

Savitar 1947, pg. 10.

Bird’s-eye view of the temporary 

dormitories, Savitar 1947, pg. 11.

This was a bittersweet homecoming for veterans, who were the main demographic populating these make-shift neighborhoods (so much so that one neighborhood was nicknamed ‘G.I. city’). According to Alumni Magazine, in early 1947 there were 2016 single veterans housed in 63 temporary dormitories, 199 family units built for married veterans, an emergency cafeteria erected on the ROTC field, and 12 emergency classrooms assembled on various campus locations (two on the lawn in front of Jesse) (Alumni Magazine, Feb 1947, pg. 5). Although Walker—as a veteran, Missouri resident, and former student—would have been in the first priority group for student housing, 1947 and 1948 would have been turbulent years for everyone on campus. Walker obviously took this in stride and drew multiple cartoons that specifically satirize the housing/classroom crisis:

Mort Walker, Savitar 1947, pg. 86.

Mort Walker, Showme 1947, v. 4, pg. 16.

Always a trouble-maker at heart, Walker also didn’t pull his punches when talking about the G.I. Bill. Here he critiques the monthly subsistence allowance that it provided:

Mort Walker, Showme, 1947, v. 10, pg. 9.

Mort Walker, Showme, 1947, v. 9, pg. 9.

While certainly Walker made much humor out of the practical hurdles that Mizzou veterans encountered, Walker’s illustrations during this time also reflect some of the psychological difficulties. Initially, many Mizzou veterans—due to age or to the suffering they witnessed during the war—felt out of place upon returning to a civilian environment. Notably, Walker provided the illustration for a story in the Showme by Dran Rabb, titled “Decision in the Spring,” which follows a disenchanted student veteran named Tom. Of Tom, Rabb writes:

He tried—oh God how hard—to open those gates; to join that marching multitude that seemed to ignore him. But they marched on through the days, laughing, playing—making him hate them at times and making him want to join them too—so that for all the gaiety of college, he was as lonesome as a visitor from a foreign land (Showme, 1948, v. 4, pg 13).

Not surprisingly, Walker’s perspective on out-of-place veterans on campus is a bit lighter, as he pokes fun at the advanced age of the freshman class:

Mort Walker, Savitar 1947, pg. 46.

Mort Walker, Showme, 1946, v. 11, pg. 16.

As Walker’s cartoons can attest, humor is the best medicine. Walker’s cartoons put a comic spin on what were surely unsettling times for many Mizzou veterans. Likewise, it is no wonder that Beetle Bailey© is so beloved by individuals in the military, as Walker’s humor provides an outlet for processing their often-stressful lives.

As you probably know, this story ends well for Walker. He graduated from Mizzou in 1948 with a BA in humanities, migrated to New York, and became one of the most successful cartoonists of all time. To see more of Walker’s work on MU’s campus check out Mort’s Grill and the new ‘Shack’ in the Student Center—Mort and his son Neal designed many of the illustrations decorating the walls, as well as the statue of Beetle©, specifically for that space. Additionally, we are currently installing an exhibition space that will exclusively house displays of Mort Walker’s work, stories, and memorabilia.

An afterword:

Thinking about veterans and their experiences on our campus is becoming increasingly important in our time. To hear personal stories narrated by Mizzou veterans from recent wars, check out Vox Magazine

Another useful resource is the University of Missouri Veterans Center

Bibliography:

Walker, Mort. Mort Walker’s Private Scrapbook: Celebrating a Life of Love and Laughter.

            Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2000.

Savitar, Students of the University of Missouri, 1943, 1947.

Alumni Magazine and Showme from 1946, 1947, 1948.

***Click on the images to see them larger!

Portrait of the Campus in 1910

Arthur John Elder (painter) and W.T. Littig & Co. NY (publisher), University of Missouri, 1910, hand-tinted sepia photogravure, Gift of the estate of Gay McDonnell Bumgarner and James Bumgarner , & the children of Gay and Richard Carson McDonnell: Stephen Carson McDonnell, Patrick Chuck McDonnell, and Sharon Mae McDonnell. Photo credit: Emeka Anyanwu.

Our collection is already growing! The Unions were recently gifted a really charming hand-tinted gravure print from 1910 (just two years after the Journalism school opened) that shows a panoramic, birds-eye view of Mizzou’s campus! What’s a gravure print, you ask? Gravure is a photographic process of transferring an image (in our case a watercolor painting) to a stone or zinc plate used to mass produce the original image. Our gravure boasts some of the University’s most recognizable landmarks like a moss-covered Jesse Hall and the columns. Perhaps equally interesting, however, is what we can’t see here: Memorial Union, Ellis Library, and (of course) the new J School building were all built later. Moreover, the location of Peace Park (created in the aftermath of the Kent State killings), is here a yet-to-be-cultivated bit of forest! You might also look out for some of the sweeter details in the print such as students strolling along and lounging on the steps of Pickard:

Pickard Hall

Jesse Hall

The artist of our new print, Arthur John Elder, was born in London in 1874, but spent the majority of his career in various parts of the United States. In London, Elder studied with Walter Sickert, a dark and rather notorious Impressionist painter who, rumor has it, may have even been Jack the Ripper! Like his teacher (in aesthetics not in dubious reputation), Elder’s early painting trended toward Impressionism. His work was fairly successful. In fact, before leaving his motherland, Elder was awarded an artist medal at the famous cast-iron and glass exhibition hall, the Crystal Palace, which had been relocated from its original site in Hyde Park, London to Sydenham Hill.

In 1905 Elder left London, made a transatlantic move to San Francisco, and established both his home and studio on Lombard Street: San Francisco’s most beloved—and sometimes despised—thoroughfare. In the spring of 1906 his art went on exhibit at Mark Hopkins Institute (now San Francisco Art Institute). In April, just as his career was taking off, the great San Francisco earthquake hit and devastated both the Institute and the homes of Lombard Street. It is very likely that Elder would have lost most of his artwork and possessions in the fires that ensued. Understandably—to say the least—Elder left San Francisco after residing there for only a year.

In the wake of this tragedy Elder floated around a bit, visiting several parts of the Midwest (he was even a member of the St. Louis Watercolor Club). During this period the artist was employed by a publisher, W.T. Littig & Co., to create aerial renderings of American campuses and urban landmarks. W.T. Littig & Co., a New York publisher, employed several artists and is best known for these bird’s-eye urban views. Eventually, in 1925 Elder settled in Westport, CT where he became the director of the Westport School of Art, proving himself to be a man of many professional hats. Elder died there in 1948.

Printed aerial views, like the one in the Unions’ collection, were popular even before the Civil War. Because flight was not commercially offered to the general public until the 30s, these illustrations provided views otherwise unavailable to most Americans, allowing them perceive their environment in new ways. While viewmakers often varied on the degree of accuracy they achieved in their renderings, none wavered from the common goal of producing images that were pleasing to viewers. Venders often sold these images through bookstores or door to door canvassers and sometimes avid customers even subscribed to a given publisher’s views. In 1910 (when our print was made) it would have cost you somewhere around $5.00 to purchase it, and you might have seen versions of it hanging in local offices, home parlors, bank and hotel lobbies, and retail shops. These prints were seen as wall decoration rather than fine art; therefore, most were eventually destroyed. Only recently museums and collectors have started to recognize the historical significance of these prints and have begun to preserve the relative few that still exist.

In the early 20^th century the popularity of these views rapidly declined. This decline happened for two main reasons: (1) The urban sprawls became too large to profitably render, and (2) the new-found ability to take panoramic photographs from the air made these prints look rather antiquated. The aviation advancements made during the First World War (a watershed moment in the development of flight) were met by increasingly improved methods of photography. Consequently, aerial photography soon dominated the bird’s-eye-market and captivated the American cultural imagination. To check out some great early aerial photographs of Mizzou’s campus check out the University Archive’s website: http://muarchives.missouri.edu/aerial.html

Bibliography

Falk, Peter Hastings, Ed. Who Was Who in American Art. Madison, CN: Sound View Press, 1985.

Jacobsen, Anita, Ed. Jacobsen’s Biographical Index of American Artists. Carrollton, TX: A.J. Publications, 2002.

Reps, John W. Views and Viewmakers of Urban America: Lithographs of Towns and Cities in the United States and Canada, Notes on the Artists and Publishers, and a Union Catalog of Their Work, 1825-1925. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1984.

***Special thanks goes out to Dr. Alex Barker and University Affairs in Jesse Hall for bringing this print to our attention!!! Thanks!

Introductions

This is the first entry of the Student Unions’ new art blog! As the would-be author of this blog, I thought I should tell you a bit about myself and what I will be writing about. My name is Niki Eaton and I am a doctoral student in the Department of Art History and Archaeology here at the University of Missouri, Columbia. I am proudly starting my 4^th year on the MU campus. To be specific, I am an Americanist art historian, which means that I primarily study and write about American art. Lately my interests have led me to write about the soldier in art during the First World War. During my time as a master’s student I was employed at Mizzou’s Museum of Art and Archaeology where I was given the privilege of working on the Faces of Warhol exhibition. For the past two years I have been a graduate teaching assistant for various courses on art history within my department.

This brings us to the current year—I have been given the exciting opportunity of acting as the inaugural Public Arts graduate assistant here at the Student Unions! As such, I will be working to expand the Unions’ holdings of fine art and historical objects while simultaneously planning exhibits to display said objects. The Student Unions’ art blog will be a place where I will chronicle our progress, alert you to upcoming exhibits, and provide you with (hopefully interesting) information about our new objects. Stay tuned!