Alfred Earl Hayward (1884 – 1939), was a 20th century American comic strip artist. He was known professionally as A. E. Hayward for his comics work although he used his full name for his fine arts work. He is best known for his seminal 1918-1941 strip '' Somebody's Stenog'' ("stenog" standing for " stenographer"). This strip, featuring

flapper Flappers were a subculture of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptab ...

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secretary A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a w ...

Cam O'Flage, was one of the first daily strips focusing on an independent woman. It was the first enduring daily strip to have an "office girl" as the protagonist and to be concerned with a group of female office workers.

Early career and painting

Hayward was born as Alfred Mark Hayward on February 14, 1884, in

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 2020 ...

, to English immigrants. His father and grandfather were painters, and he became an accomplished

watercolorist Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

himself, exhibiting his

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

landscapes (usually of mountains, and some quite abstract) to critical praise at New York's Fifteen Gallery, the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.human interest In journalism, a human-interest story is a feature story that discusses people or pets in an emotional way. It presents people and their problems, concerns, or achievements in a way that brings about interest, sympathy or motivation in the reader o ...

fare, wrote poetry, and lectured at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, but found his greatest fame when he turned to cartooning. He created the strip ''Some Day, Maybe'' for the ''

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publi ...

'' in 1912 and ''Great Ceasar's Ghost'', later named ''Great Ceasar's Goat'' and later still ''Pinheads'' (1913–1915) also for the ''World''. He created ''Colonel Corn'' (1915–1918) for the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. His ...

'' and the single-panel ''Padded Cell'' (also 1915–1918) for the Public Ledger Syndicate. In ''Padded Cell'' he ran a suite of cartoons called ''Somebody's Stenographer'' for six weeks in 1916. This served as a prototype for his most successful work.

''Somebody's Stenog''

''Somebody's Stenog'' first ran on December 16, 1918, preceding (and perhaps in part inspiring) the similarly-themed strips ''

Winnie Winkle ''Winnie Winkle'' is an American comic strip published during a 76-year span (1920–1996). Ten film adaptations were also made. Its premise was conceived by Joseph Medill Patterson, but the stories and artwork were by Martin Branner, who wrote ...

'' (1920) and ''

Tillie the Toiler ''Tillie the Toiler'' is a newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Russ Westover who initially worked on his concept of a flapper character in a strip he titled ''Rose of the Office''. With a title change, it sold to King Features Syndicate ...

'' (1921). The Sunday strip debuted on April 30, 1922. The strip was distributed out of Philadelphia by the

Ledger Syndicate The Public Ledger Syndicate (known simply as the Ledger Syndicate) was a syndication company operated by the Philadelphia '' Public Ledger'' that was in business from 1915 to circa 1950 (outlasting the newspaper itself, which ceased publishing in ...

. Characters included Cam O'Flage's friend Mary Doodle, her boss Sam Smithers, and her rival Kitty Scratch. Hayward retired from the strip in 1933 and died in 1939; the strip was continued by artists including Ray Thompson and Sam Nichols. The last ''Somebody's Stenog'' strip was published May 10, 1941. The strip was published outside America. In French Canada it ran in '' La Presse'' under the title ''LouLou'' and in Sweden it ran in

Hemmets Journal ''Hemmets Journal'' (English: ''Journal of the Home'') is a Swedish family magazine published by Egmont. It was the second largest weekly magazine in Sweden in 2009. History and profile The first issue of ''Hemmets Journal'' was published in 192 ...

as ''Grosshandlare Petterkvist och hans sekreterare'' ("Merchant Peter Kvist and His Secretary"). ''Somebody's Stenog'' was successful enough that Al Capp, shopping ''

Li'l Abner ''Li'l Abner'' is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbilly, hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written a ...

'' in the mid 1930s, was pressured to instead draw a strip similar to Hayward's.

Personal life and death

Hayward married Stella Kelly on August 28, 1907. They had a daughter, Joyce. Hayward died in New York City on July 25, 1939.

References

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hayward, A.E. 1884 births 1939 deaths American comics artists American comic strip cartoonists