Frances Edwina Dumm (1893 – April 28, 1990) was a writer-artist who drew the comic strip '' Cap Stubbs and Tippie'' for nearly five decades; she is also notable as America's first full-time female editorial

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

. She used her middle name for the signature on her comic strip, signed simply Edwina.

Biography

One of the earliest female syndicated cartoonists, Dumm was born in

Upper Sandusky, Ohio Upper Sandusky is a city and the county seat of Wyandot County, Ohio, Wyandot County, Ohio, United States, along the upper Sandusky River, which flows north to Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie. The city is approximately 59 mi (96 km) south of ...

, and lived in Marion and Washington Courthouse, Ohio throughout her youth before the family settled down in Columbus. Her mother was Anna Gilmore Dennis, and her father, Frank Edwin Dumm, was an actor-playwright turned newspaperman. Dumm's paternal grandfather, Robert D. Dumm, owned a newspaper in Upper Sandusky which Frank Dumm later inherited. Her brother, Robert Dennis Dumm, was a reporter for the Columbus ''Dispatch'', and art editor for Cole Publishing Company's ''Farm & Fireside'' magazine. In 1911, she graduated from Central High School in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

, and then took the Cleveland-based Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning correspondence course. Her name was later featured in Landon's advertisements. While enrolled in the correspondence course, she also took a business course and worked as a stenographer at the

Columbus Board of Education Columbus City Schools, formerly known as Columbus Public Schools, is the official school district for the city of Columbus, Ohio, and serves most of the city (portions of the city are served by suburban school districts). The district has 46,6 ...

. In 1915, Dumm was hired by the short-lived Republican newspaper, the Columbus ''Monitor'', to be a full-time cartoonist. Her first cartoon was published on August 7, 1915, in the debut issue of the paper. During her years at the ''Monitor'' she provided a variety of features including a comic strip called ''The Meanderings of Minnie'' about a young tomboy girl and her dog, Lillie Jane, and a full-page editorial cartoon feature, ''Spot-Light Sketches'.'' She drew editorial cartoons for the ''Monitor'' from its first edition (August 7, 1915) until the paper folded (July 1917). In the ''Monitor'', her ''Spot-Light Sketches'' was a full-page feature of editorial cartoons, and some of these promoted women's issues. Elisabeth Israels Perry, in the introduction to Alice Sheppard's ''Cartooning for Suffrage'' (1994), wrote that artists such as

Blanche Ames Ames Blanche Ames Ames (February 18, 1878 – March 2, 1969) was an American artist, political activist, inventor, writer, and prominent supporter of women's suffrage and birth control. Personal life Born Blanche Ames in Lowell, Massachusetts, Am ...

, Lou Rogers and Edwina Dumm produced: After the ''Monitor'' folded, Dumm moved to New York City, where she continued her art studies at the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

. She was hired by the George Matthew Adams Service to create ''Cap Stubbs and Tippie,'' a family strip following the lives of a boy Cap, his dog Tippie, their family, and neighbors. Cap's grandmother, Sara Bailey, is prominently featured, and may have been based on Dumm's own grandmother, Sarah Jane Henderson, who lived with their family. The strip was strongly influenced by

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

’s ''

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United S ...

'', as well as Dumm’s favorite comic, '' Buster Brown'' by

Richard F. Outcault Richard Felton Outcault (; January 14, 1863 – September 25, 1928) was an American cartoonist. He was the creator of the series ''The Yellow Kid'' and ''Buster Brown'' and is considered a key pioneer of the modern comic strip. Life and career ...

. Dumm worked very fast; according to comics historian Martin Sheridan, she could pencil a daily strip in an hour. Her love of dogs is evident in her strips as well as her illustrations for books and magazines, such as ''Sinbad'', her weekly dog page which ran in both ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' and the London ''

Tatler ''Tatler'' is a British magazine published by Condé Nast Publications focusing on fashion and lifestyle, as well as coverage of high society and politics. It is targeted towards the British upper-middle class and upper class, and those interes ...

''. She illustrated

Alexander Woollcott Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio ...

's ''Two Gentlemen and a Lady''. For ''Sonnets from the Pekinese and Other Doggerel'' (Macmillan, 1936) by Burges Johnson (1877–1963), she illustrated "Losted" and other poems. From the 1931 through the 1960s, she drew another dog for the newspaper feature '' Alec the Great'', in which she illustrated verses written by her brother, Robert Dennis Dumm. Their collaboration was published as a book in 1946. In the late 1940s, she drew the covers for sheet music by her friend and neighbor, Helen Thomas, who did both music and lyrics. During the 1940s, she also contributed ''Tippie'' features to various comic books including

All-American Comics ''All-American Comics'' was a comics anthology and the flagship title of comic book publisher All-American Publications, one of the forerunners of DC Comics. It ran for 102 issues from 1939 to 1948. Characters created for the title, including Green ...

and

Dell Comics Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1974. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium.Evanier, Mark"Wh ...

. In 1950, Dumm,

Hilda Terry Hilda is one of several female given names derived from the name ''Hild'', formed from Old Norse , meaning 'battle'. Hild, a Nordic-German Bellona, was a Valkyrie who conveyed fallen warriors to Valhalla. Warfare was often called Hild's Game. The ...

, and Barbara Shermund became the first women to be inducted into the

National Cartoonists Society The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...

. When the George Matthew Adams Service went out of business in 1965, Dumm's strip was picked up by The Washington Star Syndicate. Dumm continued to write and draw ''Tippie'' until her 1966 retirement (which brought the strip to an end).Jay, Alex
"Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Edwina Dumm,"
''Stripper's Guide'' (August 16, 2016): "''American Newspaper Comics'' said Edwina’s ''Cap Stubbs and Tippie'' began in 1918 from the George Matthew Adams Service which syndicated the strip to May 29, 1965. The Washington Star Syndicate handled the strip to September 3, 1966."

Personal life

Dumm never married. After she retired from her comic strip, she remained active with watercolor paintings, photography and helping the elderly at her New York City apartment building when she was well into her eighties.

Awards

She was a recipient of the

Gold Key Award in 1978, and remained the only woman to win this award until 2013.

Exhibitions

''Edwina Dumm'': 2012 digital exhibition curated by Lucy Shelton Caswell

References

External links