Tom Little, American cartoonist. award for outstanding editorial cartoons, 1947; Award, 1953. Member Association American.; Mason (32 degree, Shriner).; Club: Richland Golf and Country (Nashville).
Background
Little was born in Snatch (now called Peytonsville) in an extremely rural part of Williamson County, Tennessee. His father died when he was two, and his family lived with his grandfather, who taught Little to draw before he could even write.
Education
Student art Watkins Institute, Nashville, 1912-1915. Student Montgomery Bell Academy, Nashville, 1917-1918. Private cartooning under Carey Orr, 1913-1916.
Career
His first job was picking potatoes for 50 cents a day, but the next year he entered the news business at age nine by folding issues of the Williamson County News. He joined the Tennessean in 1916 and became a police reporter there in 1919. His tenure at the paper was interrupted by service in the US Army (at 5'2", he was rejected by the US Marines for being underweight) and a year (1923–24) as a reporter and cartoonist at the syndicate of the New York Herald Tribune.
Prompted by his mother's illness, he returned to the Tennessean. He became city editor in 1931, but following a dispute with the publisher he left that post in 1937. He began drawing editorial cartoons for the Tennessean in 1934 and drew exclusively after abandoning editing and reporting in 1937.
His drawing style resembled Fitzpatrick's and the work of both men was noted for biting content. For his part, Fitzpatrick disliked the resemblance and considered Little an "imitator". Little became one of the most influential and republished cartoonists in the US. Beginning in 1934, Little collaborated with Tom Sims (writer of Popeye) on a single panel comic strip for King Features called Sunflower Street, depicting the lives of rural African-Americans.
Though well-intentioned, the strip was cancelled in 1949 for fear that the strip would be viewed as condescending and draw racially based complaints. Little married Helen Dahnke of Union City, TN (1900-1938) in 1927. She was an editor for The Nashville Tennessean.
Little retired in 1970.
Achievements
Membership
Member Association American. Mason (32 degree, Shriner). Club: Richland Golf and Country (Nashville).
Connections
Married Helen Dahnke, October 19, 1926 (deceased.; married second Lillian Hannah, October 20, 1945.
Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
National Headliner Award; Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning; Christopher Award; Freedoms Foundation Medal
The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartoon is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Journalism.
The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartoon is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Journalism.