''Keeping Up with the Joneses'' was an American

gag-a-day A gag-a-day comic strip is the style of writing comic cartoons such that every installment of a strip delivers a complete joke or some other kind of artistic statement. It is opposed to story or continuity strips, which rely on the development of ...

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

Pop Momand Arthur Ragland
by Alex Jay, at

that ran from March 31, 1913 to April 16, 1938. It depicts the McGinis family, Aloysius, Clarice, their daughter Julie, and their housekeeper Bella Donna, who struggle to "keep up" with the lifestyle of their neighbors, the unseen Joneses. The comic popularized the well-known catchphrase "

keeping up with the Joneses Keeping is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Charles Keeping (1924–1988), British illustrator, children's book author and lithographer * Damien Keeping (born 1982), Australian rules football coach * Frederick Keeping (1867– ...

", referring to people's tendency to judge their own social standing according to that of their neighbors.

History

The comic was created Arthur R. "Pop" Momand, who had earlier worked as a newspaper

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...

. It debuted on March 31, 1913 in ''

The New York Globe ''The New York Globe'', also called ''The New York Evening Globe'', was a daily New York City newspaper published from 1904 to 1923, when it was bought and merged into ''The New York Sun''. It is not related to a New York City-based Saturday fami ...

''.Safire, William (November 15, 1998)
"On Language; Up the Down Ladder"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Retrieved June 23, 2016. The strip is a domestic comedy following a family of

social climber A ''parvenu'' is a person who is a relative newcomer to a high-ranking socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb ''parvenir'' (to reach, to arrive, to manage to do something). Orig ...

s, the McGinises: parents Aloysius and Clarice, their daughter Julie, and the family's maid Bella Donna. Various strips feature the McGinis family attempting to match the lifestyle of their neighbors, the Joneses, who are often mentioned but never seen. The strip was later picked up by

Joseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer ( ; born Pulitzer József, ; April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American politician and newspaper publisher of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' and the ''New York World''. He became a leading national figure in ...

's ''

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 pub ...

'', and was subsequently syndicated in many other papers by

Associated Newspapers DMG Media (stylised in lowercase) is an intermediate holding company for Associated Newspapers, Northcliffe Media, Harmsworth Printing, Harmsworth Media and other subsidiaries of Daily Mail and General Trust. It is based at Northcliffe House in ...

. The title and central conceit of a family struggling to "keep up" with the neighbors resonated with its audience, to the point that the phrase ''

'' became a common catchphrase. Use of the ''Jones'' name for neighbors involved in social competition predates Momand;

William Safire William Lewis Safire (; Safir; December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009Safire, William (1986). ''Take My Word for It: More on Language.'' Times Books. . p. 185.) was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He w ...

traces an early example in the English writer E. J. Simmons' 1879 ''Memoirs of a Station Master''. Some etymologists suggest this originates in reference to the family of

Edith Wharton Edith Wharton (; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and interior designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray ...

(née Jones), prominent socialites in 19th-century New York. However, linguist Rosemarie Ostler writes that "''Jones'' is a common enough name to have universal associations". On the Sunday page, ''Keeping Up with the Joneses'' had a topper strip, ''Holly of Hollywood'', which ran from January 3, 1932 to March 27, 1938. The strip itself did not achieve the lasting fame of some other comics, and was not widely merchandised. It was adapted into a series of silent

animated short Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...

s in 1915 and 1916 by Gaumont Company Production. The strip was also collected in volumes between 1920 and 1921. The comic ended after 25 years with a farewell strip on April 16, 1938. Momand then made a living as a portrait painter; he died on December 5, 1987, at the age of 100. The strip was subsequently little remembered, although the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" remains well known in the 21st century.

References

{{reflist, 30em 1913 comics debuts 1938 comics endings American comics characters American comic strips Comics adapted into animated films Gag-a-day comics Comic strips started in the 1910s