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 1873-94. Illustrated and edited by an energetic reformer named John W. Bengough, Grip teemed with sketches, poetry, and political invective. Bengough's caricatures and cartoons were supplemented in at least two periods by the acerbic commentary of socialist pioneer, T. Phillips Thompson. Sketches from a Young Country is the first comprehensive study to evaluate this historically important magazine, assess the motivations of its authors, and set both in social and political context.
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. The author begins by discussing the magazine's visual contribution, both to its own time and our own, then explores its relations with the federal and Ontario reform parties and its anti-Tory bias. Later chapters examine Grip's response to Western development, its descent into 'race and creed' propaganda in the late 1880s, its anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist leanings under Thompson's influence, and its stance on such social issues as women's rights, aboriginal issues, and law and order.
Containing over a hundred of Bengough's cartoons with captions to clarify contemporary references, Sketches from a Young Country makes an exciting contribution to popular history, Canadian politics, and the history of journalism.
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. The author begins by discussing the magazine's visual contribution, both to its own time and our own, then explores its relations with the federal and Ontario reform parties and its anti-Tory bias. Later chapters examine Grip's response to Western development, its descent into 'race and creed' propaganda in the late 1880s, its anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist leanings under Thompson's influence, and its stance on such social issues as women's rights, aboriginal issues, and law and order.
Containing over a hundred of Bengough's cartoons with captions to clarify contemporary references, Sketches from a Young Country makes an exciting contribution to popular history, Canadian politics, and the history of journalism.