Sketches from a young country
Subtitle: the images of Grip magazine
By: Carman Cumming.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Toronto; Buffalo
Language: eng
Number of pages: 275
Subjects: Grip (Toronto, Ont.); Press and politics -- Canada -- History -- 19th century.; Political culture -- Canada -- History -- 19th century.; Ontario -- Politics and government -- 19th century.; Political culture -- Ontario -- History -- 19th century.; Canadian wit and humor, Pictorial -- History.; Canada -- Politics and government -- 1867-1914.; Canada -- Politics and government -- 1867-1914 -- Caricatures and cartoons.; Ontario -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Other titles: Grip (Toronto, Ont.)
Description: The Canadian political and social discussion of the late nineteenth century owed a great deal to Grip, the satirical magazine that kept a vigilant eye on national affairs from 1873 to 1894. Illustrated and edited by an energetic, talented young reformer named John W. Bengough, Grip featured sketches, poetry, and political invective. Bengough's caricatures of dignitaries and his cartoons of political situations were supplemented in at least two periods by the acerbic commentary of socialist pioneer T.

Phillips Thompson. Together, the two men provided a running account and critique of the era's attitudes on class, sex, race, and public policy. Bengough was part of a broad progressive alliance that linked farm and labour agitators with Christian intellectuals alarmed about the worst excesses of turn-of-the-century capitalism. Grip was an early, and righteous, crusader for this liberal, Protestant, reformist view.

Sketches from a Young Country is the first comprehensive study to evaluate this historically important magazine, to assess the motivations of its authors, and to set both in social and political context.

Containing over a hundred of Bengough's cartoons, with captions to clarify contemporary references, and offering an assessment of Grip in relation to its British and American counterparts, Sketches from a Young Country makes an exciting contribution to popular history, Canadian politics, and the history of journalism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-268) and index.