Anne Briardy Mergen (August 19, 1906 – July 3, 1994) was an editorial cartoonist who lived in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. Hired by the '' Miami Daily News'' in 1933, she was one of the first woman editorial cartoonists in the United States,Anne Mergen; Florida Cartoons
June 21, 2008 - September 04, 2008; Traveling Exhibition, History Miami
Archived
June 4, 2012 at the

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. and for most of her career was the only woman in the U.S. working as an editorial cartoonist.Anne Mergen
Library News Ohio State University

Life

Mergen was born in

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

, in 1906 to Frank and Elizabeth Briardy, second-generation Irish immigrants. She studied commercial art at the

American Academy of Art The American Academy of Art College is a private art school in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1923 for the education of fine and commercial arts students. The school's Bill L. Parks Gallery is open to the public and features exhibitions ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

before moving with her family to Miami in 1926. She worked as a fashion-advertising artist for

Burdine's Burdines (} ) was an American chain of department stores operating in the state of Florida, headquartered in Miami. The original store opened in Bartow, Florida in 1896 as a carriage-trade shop. Over its nearly 110-year history, Burdines grew in ...

, a department store centered in Florida, before joining the '' Miami Daily News'', part of the Cox newspaper chain, as its editorial cartoonist in 1933. She married her husband Frank Mergen in 1932 and worked from her home studio in

as the mother to two children.

Work

Mergen's transition into the editorial cartooning industry began when she created a one-page fashion story called "Anne and Peg's Scrapbook" and submitted it to the Miami Daily News. The newspaper expanded her story to a two-page feature and published "Anne and Peg's Scrapbook" for three years. After making this connection to the paper, the Miami Daily News published Mergen's first editorial cartoon in April 1933 and she became the paper's full-time editorial cartoonist in 1936; at the time, she was the only editorial cartoonist at the paper and the only female editorial cartoonist in the U.S. During her career, Mergen covered political and social issues like the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

, the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, environmental tourism, and city government. She retired in 1956, but continued publishing cartoons as late as 1959; Anne Mergen produced over 7,000 cartoons in her lifetime, and her work appeared in the '' Atlanta Journal'', '' Dayton News'', and '' Miami Daily News''.

Awards and achievements

After the '' Miami Daily News'' won a 1939

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

for exposing local government corruption, Mergen's editor Hal Lyshon said, "Don't let anyone ever tell you it wasn't Mergen cartoons that won the Pulitzer today." She received the Wendy Warren Award from Today's Woman magazine in 1953, an national award for a woman "who has added stature to woman's place in the world, achieved marked success in business, industry, science or the arts, or who has contributed to the community welfare through her activities and accomplishments." Mergen was also a 2012/2013 nominee for the

Florida Women's Hall of Fame The Florida Women's Hall of Fame is an honor roll of women who have contributed to life for citizens of the US state of Florida. An awards ceremony for the hall of fame was first held in 1982 and recipient names are displayed in the Florida State ...

for her persistence in the male dominated field of editorial cartooning and for the awareness she brought to local, national, and global issues. During her career, Mergen was praised for her work and even received fan mail from

J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...

and

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

, later having two of her cartoons hung in the Roosevelt Memorial Room in

Hyde Park Hyde Park may refer to: Places England * Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London * Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds * Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield * Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester Austra ...

. After her death in 1994, her grandchildren, Matthew Bernhardt and Christine Hoverman, donated 600 of her original cartoons to the

Cartoon Research Library The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is a research library of American cartoons and comic art affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio. Formerly known as the Cartoon Research Library and the Cartoon Libra ...

, which are now held as the Anne Mergen Collection. Many newspapers containing her cartoons are collected at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, the Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library, and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida (now known as HistoryMiami).

References

External links

The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: "Anne Mergen: Editorial Cartoonist" digital exhibit
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mergen, Anne Briardy 1906 births 1994 deaths American editorial cartoonists American women illustrators American illustrators Artists from Omaha, Nebraska 20th-century American women artists