Joseph Ferdinand Keppler

Joseph Ferdinand Keppler (1 February 1838 Vienna – 19 February 1894 New York City) was an Austrian-born American cartoonist and caricaturist who greatly influenced the growth of satirical cartooning in the United States.

His parents were bakers, and his talent is said to have first manifested itself in his cake decorations. He studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and later contributed comic drawings to the Vienna humor magazine (Cock-a-doodle-do).

Unable to make a living from his art in Vienna he joined a theatrical troupe as a scene painter and then as a comedian, traveling with them in the Tyrol and Italy. His ability to restore old paintings gained for him the good will and some extra money in some of the monasteries on the way. He was a charming companion, an excellent story-teller, and immediately popular wherever he went. In 1864, he married the Viennese actress Minna Rubens. Meanwhile, his father, who had come to the States to escape the European Revolutions of 1848, had established himself as the proprietor of a general store in a little town in northern Missouri. Hearing glowing accounts from America, young Keppler and his wife decided to emigrate.

After visiting his father, Keppler made his way to St. Louis in 1867 and renewed his career as an actor. In 1869, he helped launch the German-American cartoon weekly, Die Vehme, which lasted for a year. It was followed by Frank und Frei, which lasted six months. In March 1871, he attempted another cartoon weekly, Puck, which lasted until August 1872.

After the death of his wife in 1870, Keppler married Pauline Pfau in 1871, the union producing three children, Udo, Irma and Olga.

In the fall of 1872, he moved with his wife and son to New York city and was soon working for Frank Leslie's publishing house. Starting in 1874, he began contributing political cartoons to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. In September 1876 he and fellow Frank Leslie employee Adolph Schwarzmann resurrected Puck for the New York German-American audience and then introduced an English-language version the following year. Keppler's main delight was in producing cartoons criticizing President Ulysses S. Grant, and the political corruption of his administration. His cartoons were famous for their caustic wit, generating much publicity for Puck and pioneering the use of color lithography for caricature. Much of his success was due to a clever adaptation of classical and historical subjects to his criticisms of modern life.

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