OHIO ARTIST IN AUSTRALIA: LIVINGSTON
HOPKINS
by FREDERICK D. KERSHNER, JR.*
In times present and past Americans
have complained bitterly
about the lack of knowledge of the
United States revealed by
foreigners. Commonly they have
attributed this ignorance to nation-
alistic myopia, upper-class snobbery,
intellectual narcissism, or a
combination of the three. One hundred
percent Yankees like to
supplement their critiques with
gratuitous prophecies of impending
retribution, not the least feature of
which is to be the withdrawal
of American attentions, economic and
otherwise. It is to be pre-
sumed that a comfortable feeling of
self-righteousness results from
the contrast of American virtue with
the sins of the stranger. To
such an average citizen the idea that
he himself may be guilty of
identical myopia, snobbery, and
narcissism toward the brash young-
nations-with-a-future of our own day
must come with a sense of
real shock.
This shall serve as an introduction to
the story of Livingston
Hopkins, the Ohioan who became
Australia's favorite cartoonist.
At the turn of the century his sketches
were a byword in the
Southwest Pacific, equally admired in
the woolshearer's outback
hut, the city laborer's cottage, and
the wealthy squatter's clubroom.
"There are few people throughout
the length and breadth of
Australasia who are not familiar with
the name of 'Hop,' of the
Sydney Bulletin," declared
an Australian journalist of the nineties.
"Many of Mr. Hopkins' sketches have
become immortal . . . [and]
. . . occasionally convulse the whole
Continent with laughter."1
As time passed the belief in Hopkins'
greatness as a cartoonist
deepened. By 1913 he was pronounced
Australia's best cartoonist,2
and a few years later, "one of the
greatest cartoonists whom Sydney
* Frederick D. Kershner, Jr., is an
associate professor of history at Ohio University.
During the year 1951-52 he held a Fulbright
lecturing and research fellowship at
the University of Sydney.
1 Charles Bright, "Mr. Livingston
Hopkins; 'Hop' of the Bulletin," Cosmos Maga-
zine, I (1895), 349-353.
2 Building (Sydney, N.S.W.), July 12, 1913, pp. 89-92.
113
114
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
has ever seen."3 Today
those judgments still endure. A recent work
refers to him, with Phil May and David
Low, as one of the "three
world-famed cartoonists" conferred
upon the nation by other
countries.4 But while May
and Low spent two and one-half and
eight years respectively in the land of
the kangaroo--relatively
small portions of their careers--thirty
of the most productive years
of "Hop's" life were passed
in his adoptive country.
Though "world-famous" to
some, Hopkins is scarcely known in
the United States, least of all in his
native Ohio. William Murrell,
A History of American Graphic Humor
(1865-1938), includes a
few pages on his American record.5
There are even briefer references
in Frank Mott, A History of American
Magazines, and Sadakichi
Hartmann, A History of American Art.6
Ohio histories do not so
much as mention his name, not even Edna
Marie Clark's Ohio Art
and Artists.7 It would appear that Australians and Americans are
in virtually complete disagreement as
to the man's importance.
What then are the facts in the case?
Livingston Hopkins was born near
Bellefontaine, Logan County,
Ohio, on July 7, 1846, one of fourteen
children, of whom nine
survived to adulthood.8 The
family had migrated from New
England to the Ohio frontier a number
of years earlier; Hopkins
was always to take great pride in his
pioneering Puritan forebears.
The death of his father when the boy
was only three increased the
already considerable poverty of the
Hopkins menage. Nevertheless,
he was sent to the
"deestrict" school as a matter of course; education
was a necessity! It was an ordinary
one-story country schoolhouse,
lime-washed inside and out, with
backless seats, and a cast-iron
stove in the center of the room. Yet
young Livingston was fortunate
3 "P.F.,"
"'Hop' As I First Met Him," Commonwealth Home, September 1,
1927,
p. 37.
4 David M. Dow, Australia Advances (New York and London, 1938),
217.
5 (2 vols., New York, 1933-38), II,
26-27, 103, 154-155.
6 (3 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1938- ), III, 504, 552; (2 vols., Boston,
1932),
II, 98.
7 Miss Clark has chapters on "The
Graphic Arts" and "Newspaper Artists," in
which she discusses Outcault, Opper,
William A. Rogers, and others, but there is no
reference to Hopkins.
8 Some will remember Bellefontaine as
the place where, allegedly, the first concrete
pavement in America was laid in 1891.
Ohio Artist in Australia 115
in his introduction to learning, for
"Daddy Gudgeon," the school-
master, was an unusually broadminded
and kindly man. When his
seven year old pupil began to produce
picture-caricatures of
"teacher," Gudgeon not only
received them with tolerant amuse-
ment but passed them around to the
other pupils and encouraged
the boy to preserve them in a
scrapbook. Gudgeon even supplied
the embryonic artist with plenty of
paper and ink for his schoolroom
drawing, and never once did the teacher
subject him to any form
of corporal punishment.9
The decidedly favorable impression of
formal education which
Hopkins received so early was
maintained even after his departure
that same year for Toledo and an elder
brother's care. Here he
attended a much larger
"mixed" (or coeducational) district school.
Reminiscing to Australian friends a
half century later, he recalled
of Ohio in the 1850's that coeducation
was general, and the public
school system so efficient that private
schools were unknown. How-
ever exaggerated this may have been,
the opinion shows that
Hopkins found his American educational
experience highly satis-
factory, in marked contrast to certain
contemporaries like Thomas
Edison, Henry Flagler, and E. H.
Harriman. Perhaps the curriculum
of the day was better suited to the
artistic than to the scientific or
business mind.
At any rate, Hopkins and the schools
parted company for good
in 1861. He was fourteen years old and
had already received rather
more than the average education for one
of his station in life.
Undoubtedly he considered himself
mature and well prepared to
earn a living. Moreover he was
fascinated by the Civil War and
read everything that he could about it.
His brother had already
volunteered for the Union army, and
Livingston realized that it
9 The discussion of Hopkins' American
career has been derived principally from the
following three sources. Dorothy June
Hopkins, Hop of the "Bulletin" (Sydney, 1929)
is a full-dress biography written by his
daughter. Livingston Hopkins, "Hop, His
Confessions," The Lone Hand (Sydney),
N.S., I (1913-14), 18-21, 92-94, 166-168,
244-247, 324-326, 396-397, 435-438; II
(1914-15), 16-20, is an autobiographical
reminiscence by the artist, from which
his daughter has borrowed freely in the first-
mentioned work. A. G. Stephens, "Livingston
Hopkins, Comic Artist," Review of
Reviews (Australasian
edition), XXXI (1905), 143-150, is an appreciative estimate
by one of Australia's most brilliant
journalists and a Bulletin editor during much of
Hopkins' long association with that paper.
116
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
was up to him to become a breadwinner.
Temporarily art fell into
abeyance; instead he worked at the
numerous odd jobs so plentiful
during the Civil War. For these he was
customarily paid in shin-
plasters or postage stamps, and one of
his favorite anecdotes was
a description of how his first wages
had to be removed from his
hands with soap and water! Late in 1864
he too was drafted.
Apart from a brief period of active
service during the final moments
of the campaign against Lee's
disintegrating Army of Virginia,
his career as a private was unexciting.
From it he derived chiefly
a lasting admiration for "Honest
Abe" and a keen pride that he
had earned a place in the fellowship of
Civil War veterans.
After the war there was nothing to do
but to return to Toledo
and its odd jobs. Here his caricatures
soon attracted the attention
of Dr. H. P. Miller, co-proprietor of
the Toledo Blade with
David R. Locke, who is better known as
"Petroleum V. Nasby."
The latter was then at the height of
his fame as one of America's
great humorists. A popular saying
attributed to a member of
Lincoln's cabinet was that three things
had stopped the Con-
federacy--the army, the navy, and
Nasby. By joining the Blade and
publishing his dialect letters in it,
Nasby had caused that journal's
circulation to soar. Hence when the
twenty-four year old Hopkins,
on the strength of his sketches, was
offered the opportunity to
illustrate some of Nasby's
"literatoor," he accepted with alacrity.
He would be sharing this task with no
less a celebrity than Thomas
Nast! The gates of fortune seemed to be
opening before him.
Yet at precisely this moment an
apparently ironic fate decreed
that he should leave Toledo for good.
Shortly before the Nasby
proposal was made, an offer of a
position as artist for the
Champaign (Illinois) Union had arrived. The prospect of
an
opening on the Blade seemed
remote; here was a chance to enter
his chosen life work, and Hopkins
jumped at it. Actually, circum-
stances permitted him to eat his cake
and have it too. His job on
the Union--a "bright little
country newspaper"--gave him his start
as a professional comic artist, and he
was able to illustrate the
Nasby books after hours. Later he paid
a tribute to these Champaign
beginnings: "So long as I am able
to remember anything, I shall
Ohio Artist in Australia 117
never forget the happy days spent in
the genial atmosphere of that
little newspaper office, nor the
valuable experience I gained there."10
Before the year was out, his work had
come to the attention of
J. G. Holland, then planning to open Scribner's
Monthly as a com-
petitor of Harper's Monthly.11 When
a letter arrived in October
1870 offering Hopkins an unidentified
job on the embryo journal,
he accepted immediately. He departed
for the fleshpots of New
York City with the congratulations of
his Champaign friends ringing
in his ears and dazzling dreams of
himself as editor of Scribner's
humorous department clouding his eyes.
The deflation of his balloon
came quickly and brutally when he
entered the busy Scribner's
office. Holland was out of town; his
partner, Roswell Smith, was
polite enough but obviously had never
heard of Hopkins before.
However, it was Alexander Drake, in
charge of the art department,
who provided the coup de grace. Visibly
weary of the whims of
wealthy owners and especially of their
callow young acquaintances,
Drake fixed a cold and fishy eye on his
victim and said, "Yes, your
drawings show much natural talent and
considerable humour. I
have no doubt that with two or three
years study under good in-
struction you will produce work that
will be up to the required
standard."12 A few
minutes later Hopkins was employed as a clerk
in the business department, and
arrangements had been made for
him to study two nights a week under a
drawing teacher--at his
own expense!
It took some time to regain his
self-confidence. Augustus Will,
the solid, thorough German who
instructed him according to the
"Dupuis Method," soon gave
him the principles of perspective,
vanishing point, horizons, and points
of sight, which previously he
had only sensed. But after five months
of clerking at twelve dollars
a week, Hopkins grew tired of less pay
and less prestige than he
had enjoyed in Illinois. Close
examination of current cartoons in
10 Hopkins, "Confessions," 21.
11 It appears that Miller had written to
Holland, whom he knew personally, recom-
mending Hopkins as a promising young
artist prospect. That Holland would otherwise
have chanced to look at so obscure a
paper as the Champaign Union seems unlikely.
Hopkins, "Confessions," I, 21; Stephens,
"Hopkins," 143-144.
12 Hopkins, Hop of the
"Bulletin," 45.
118
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
the "illustrateds" convinced
him that he was already capable of
work as good as or better than what was
being accepted com-
mercially. Quickly he put this theory
to the test with a batch of his
best cartoons; nearly all were accepted
at good prices by Harper's,
Leslie's, and other illustrated journals.
"Hard work and poor pay" may
have been the key to success for
a Horatio Alger hero, but it is
doubtful if many Alger heroes
actually lived, even in the
psychologically confused seventies and
eighties. Certainly the formula had no
appeal for Hopkins. He
promptly abandoned his scissors and
paste-pot at Scribner's, severed
the connection with Herr Professor
Will, and opened his own
office--he termed it a "laugh
factory"--as a free-lance artist. While
he cared no more for abstract
principles of art than for the Alger
rules of success, yet he took
considerable pride in his technical
competence with pencil, pen, and knife.
But even economic realists
may have their business troubles. Those
first years of independence
were pinched ones, and harsh necessity
frequently caused the
"laugh factory" to be
retooled for the production of school-journal
illustrations and designs for the
labels of canned goods. Pay was
often poor and erratic. Yet the Hopkins
fortunes improved steadily.
In 1875 he felt able to revisit Toledo
and take up some unfinished
business of an especially compelling
sort, a Buckeye lass named
Harriet Commager; presently Mr. and
Mrs. Hopkins returned to
New York together. Both ventures
eventually yielded handsome
dividends. By 1882 his income had
soared to a yearly total of
$5,000--almost opulent for that
day--and three children graced
his household.
By this time Hopkins had become a fully
matured artist. His
characteristic signature,
"Hop," was developed soon after his arrival
in New York City. Between 1870 and 1882
he had passed through
the wood block, photolithography, and
photoengraving periods, ab-
sorbing a thorough knowledge of the
techniques of each. The wood
block era of the post-Civil War days
required much patience and a
high degree of skill. For reproduction
it was necessary to draw
the entire sketch in sections upon
blocks of imported Turkish box-
wood with the picture reversed,
mirror-fashion, after which the
Ohio Artist in Australia 119
background was cut out with a
wood-carving knife, and the wooden
blocks glued together. Amazing speed
was achieved in this kind of
endeavor; once an entire illustrated
issue on the Chicago Fire was
gotten out in twenty-four hours!
Nevertheless it is easy to under-
stand the relief of most cartoonists
when better engraving processes
permitted them to lay their cutting
tools aside. In 1873 photo.
lithography, an improvement which
reduced the time between draw-
ing and press to a bare twenty minutes,
was being introduced by its
Canadian inventor. Consequently Hopkins
shifted to pen and ink
drawing and also acquired the art of
etching.
Even though "Hop's" personal
reputation was quite obscured by
such giants of the day as Thomas Nast,
Frank Bellew, Joseph
Keppler, and Frank Beard, his art work
was known widely. The
journals for which he sketched were the
nation's best--Harper's
Weekly, Judge, Puck, Daily Graphic,
Wild Oats, St. Nicholas, and
of course others. Among his many close
friends were Mary Mapes
Dodge of St. Nicholas, Josh
Billings, Artemus Ward, and the New
York publisher George Carleton. His
product as an illustrator was
extensive, including Josh Billings' Old
Probability, nine numbers
of his Farmer's Allminax, Robert
Burdette's Hawkeye Papers, and
many works for Artemus Ward, Bill Nye,
Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
and Nasby. In 1876 he published his own
Comic History of the
United States to take full advantage of the Philadelphia centennial
celebration. To his amazement "the
press turned and rent the book
with tooth and claw," pronouncing
it too flippant for so serious a
patriotic occasion. It flopped badly.
Later some of the sting was
removed when a British firm reissued
the Comic History success-
fully, and some of the very papers
which had damned him roundly
in 1876 now praised the new (but
unaltered) edition without
reservation. His last effort before
leaving the United States was the
sketchwork for the "original"
edition of Eugene Field's Model
Primer.l3 In more serious vein were the illustrations for Don
13 The real situation on the Field Primer
is curiously confused. Hopkins was quite
proud of this particular job of illustration, and
believed that his own copy was
worth one hundred dollars (as of 1914). However, on
page 5 of the Complete Tribune
Primer (Mutual Book Company, Boston, 1901), illustrated by
Fred Opper, Field
tersely cites his first book as follows: "'The
Tribune Primer'; Denver 1882 (out of
120 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, Baron
Munchausen, and the Knicker-
bocker History of New York, all done for the house of Harper.14
Then in the dying days of 1882 this
typically nineteenth-century
American success story was interrupted
with dramatic suddenness.
Into the "laugh factory"
strode William Henry Traill, editor of an
unknown newspaper in an almost
legendary land, with a fantastic
proposal that Hopkins abandon his
country and his hard-won career
in favor of a new life in faraway New
South Wales, Australia, as
cartoonist for the Sydney Bulletin. The
man and his mission are best
described in Hopkins' own words:
Traill had a heavy beard; heaviness,
indeed, appeared to be [his) per-
vading characteristic----. Rather above
the medium height, he was stockily
built, and was inclined to corpulency.
His slightly stooped shoulders gave
emphasis to the shortness of his neck,
and his overhanging eyebrows had
a trick of alternately twitching up and
down as he talked. To this mannerism
was added another--a sort of vibration
of the nostrils, which one may ob-
serve in certain individuals of the
order rodentia, when excited.
Owing to his climb up three flights of
stairs to my den, he seemed
somewhat blown; but soon recovered his
breath sufficiently to unfold the
Australian proposition. After announcing
the object of his visit . . . [with,
"Well, Mr. Hopkins, I've come to
take you to Australia!"], he made a
sort of ear-trumpet of his left hand,
which he raised to his ear (from which
action I inferred that he was slightly
deaf), while he watched the effect of
his forthright announcement upon his
intended prey. I will not deny that
I was "struck all of a heap."
I cast about me for some means of defending
myself against what might turn out to be
a dangerous lunatic. If I had
been a typical American of the
moving-picture type, my right hand would
have flown to my hip pocket and felt for
the inevitable revolver. I had a
sure-enough hip-pocket, but there was
nothing in it but a limp, dog's-eared
note-book. No, I was defenseless,
and--Ha! my trusty scissors, a long pair,
print, very scarce.) ('The Model
Primer'; illustrated by Hoppin; Treadway, Brooklyn,
1882. A pirate edition.)"
According to the Denver Public Library,
the original Denver edition was un-
illustrated, while the Brooklyn version
does contain "Hop's" characteristic sketches.
Evidently Field confused Hopkins with
August Hoppin, another well-known American
cartoonist of the day. As for Hopkins'
evident pleasure over his part in the Brooklyn
Primer, one can only point out that during the eighties
literary piracy had the same
sort of semi-respectability that
smuggling enjoyed in the time of John Hancock and
Sam Adams.
14 See also Livingston Hopkins,
"Cartoons and Cuttings," in Mitchell Library, Syd-
ney, N.S.W., Australia; Murrell, History
of American Graphic Humor, II, 26-27, 103.
Ohio Artist in Australia 121
lay on the table near my elbow. I picked
them up and toyed with them in an
absent sort of way as the talk
proceeded. Should my bearded "pard" make
a sudden spring, I would sell my life as
dearly as possible. But I was soon
reassured by the composed manner of my
visitor, and became interested in
the account he gave me of Australia. He
had an admirable command of
words, and was never at a loss for the right
one. His conversation was like
a well-considered leader for his paper.
I was interested as he gave me a
brief account of The Bulletin (which
was then in its infancy); how its
precarious life had been saved by a
libel action following upon an article
written by himself, and how the Sydney
public attested its approval of the
action of the paper by a subscription to
pay the law expenses of the young
proprietors . . ., who had been sent to
gaol for contempt of court. They
had been cast in a farthing damages, and
this involved the costs of the
action which they, the proprietors
(Haynes and Archibald), were unable
to pay: hence gaol.
One feature of his scheme which he
unfolded to me, made me grip the
scissors a little tighter, and keep my
eyes skinned, generally speaking; and
that feature was the giving away of
prizes to new subscribers to The Bulletin.
The prizes were to take the form of
imitation gold jewellery and cheap
revolvers. He had already purchased a
large stock of both of these "induce-
ments to subscribers," and they
were now well on their way to Australia.
He had one of these revolvers in his
pocket. He drew it forth, and if he
really had been a dangerous lunatic, he
certainly had me in his power now.
Observing, perhaps, some uneasiness in
my face, he said "Oh, it's all right;
they're quite harmless"; and he
began to snap the hammer of the weapon
to convince me of its harmlessness. I
related this incident afterwards to
certain members of The Bulletin staff,
and thenceforth The Bulletin "gun"
was known as the "Traill Harmless
Revolver."15
Like many another man in a quandary,
Hopkins sought refuge
in the necessity for consulting his
wife, who happened at the
moment to be visiting relatives in
Toledo. At Traill's urging, he
agreed to put the proposition to her by
mail. He writes, "I had
asked my wife to decide for me, almost
hoping that her reply would
be unfavorable to the emigration scheme.
This will illustrate the
state of indecision which had harrassed
my mind from the beginning
of the negotiations, and which had been
a sore trial to the said
William Henry Traill, who pulled at his
beard and stigmatized it
as my 'vexatious vacillation.'" In
three days the reply from Ohio
15 Hopkins, "Confessions," 396.
122
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
arrived, a telegram with only two
words--"Accept Australia."16
The die was cast, and by a female hand!
Within a few weeks the
family was on its way to San Francisco,
thence by Pacific Mail
steamer to Australia via Honolulu,
Samoa, and Auckland, New
Zealand. They arrived in Sydney on
February 9, 1883, and at that
point the second volume in Hopkins'
life was opened.
However bizarre it may have appeared to
Broadway or Main
Street, the manner in which
"Traill discovered Livingston" in
darkest America was in no sense
accidental. Traill, a Highland
Scot and a journalist of real ability,
previously had been Reuters
representative in New South Wales and
editor of the Sydney Mail.
Then in 1881 he became editor of the Bulletin.
Despite a circulation
of 20,000 and rising receipts from
advertising, he quickly came to
the conclusion that his new journal
needed a shot in the arm.
After a conference with the owners it
was decided that Traill would
go to America, make a study of the
strikingly successful methods of
Yankee journalism, and obtain a
first-class cartoonist and, if possible,
various other men who were skilled in
the new techniques. Traill
made a careful study of the leading
American journals, which
already enjoyed a considerable
circulation in Australia, and familiar-
ized himself with the art work which
appeared in them.17 His
selection of Hopkins as the first
target for his blandishments was
based, presumably, upon the artist's
repute, which was neither too
great nor too small, his youth and
prospects for further improve-
ment, and the ease with which his style
could be adapted to fit the
Australian scene.
But why should Traill have selected the
United States for his
foray rather than England, the mother
country? First of all it should
be said that he was planning to
raid England, and two years later
actually did so. Nevertheless it was
toward America that he headed
first. Part of the explanation may be
found in England itself. For
three-fourths of a century after the
common artistic tradition had
been rent by the fateful events of
1776, Cousin Jonathan was able
to produce no one who compared remotely
with such giants of the
16 Ibid., 397.
17 Hopkins,
Hop of the "Bulletin," 70-72, 82-90; Stephens,
"Hopkins," 148-149.
Ohio Artist in Australia 123
pencil as Gillray, Rowlandson, and
Cruikshank. Our best cartoons
were borrowed from the London weeklies.
Then came the American
Civil War, the rise of such journals as
Harper's Weekly, Leslie's
Weekly, and Vanity Fair, and the emergence of our first
great
cartoonist, Thomas Nast. By the 1870's
American caricature had
developed a style of its own--racy,
riotous, mirthful, concerned
with making fun of its own political
and social foibles rather than
shedding light upon how the great
problems of mankind might best
be solved. American weeklies began to
gain a world-wide audience,
as much for their pictorial as for
their printed content.
Accordingly, it was during this decade
that John Bull first "dis-
covered" the existence of
worthwhile graphic art in America, and
his cries of amazement could be heard
to the uttermost ends of the
empire. Not untypical was the slightly
acrid comment of Charles
Dickens' magazine, All the Year
Round, in 1878, which began by
saying:
Everybody knows that the newspaper fun
of the world is now mainly
of transatlantic origin. The Americans
regard drollery as an essential part
of journalism-something absolutely
indispensable, and to be indulged in
at whatever cost; often at the sacrifice
of good taste, not to mention graver
considerations. The most assimilative of
nations, they have absorbed the
peculiarities of so many others, that
their society must present very much
that is odd, grotesque, bizarre, and
incongruous; all of which, finding the
freest expression in a prosperous
democracy, produces that exuberant flow
of "American humour" we are so
familiar with. Over five thousand journals
keep us pretty well supplied with mirth,
even as the Gulf Stream is said
to warm our climate. They have, indeed,
somewhat superseded the native
article. These facts are patent to
everybody, but for obvious reasons we
know but little of American proficiency
in the kindred art of Caricature.
Pictorial fun is necessarily in great part
local, and less easily transferable.l8
The article then went on to describe
the great number of illus-
trated comic magazines in America, with
detailed attention for
such artists as Nast, Frank Bellew, and
Sol Eytinge. British interest
in American cartoon art deepened during
the eighties, and in 1890
W. T. Stead's Review of Reviews observed:
"The coloured cartoons
18 "Caricature in America," All the Year
Round, XLI (1878), 298-299.
124
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
of Puck and Judge of New York are among the most
effective of
their kind. There is nothing
approaching to them for their execu-
tion and vigour."19
But if it is apparent that Traill could
have obtained his ideas
purely as a British citizen who knew
his England thoroughly, it
is no less true that there was much in
the Australian scene to make
his course of action seem logical. The
youthful country was ex-
panding rapidly in population and
wealth. There was a rising
nationalistic ferment in the land, as
the pastoral age faded and the
industrial era began. On the political
scene conservatives were
alarmed by the progress of the
"Republican" movement which
sought "Freedom and Independence
for the Golden Lands of
Australia" on a frankly American
model. Underlying and supporting
republicanism there was a broad
substratum of nativist resentment
at British colonial policy which
expressed itself chiefly in a warm
admiration for American goods, gadgets,
literature, and politico-
economic nostrums. Insofar as this
movement had a vocal leader it
was undoubtedly the Sydney Bulletin.
Such were the factors which brought
Livingston Hopkins to
begin his second and greater career in
Australia. He impressed
one of his new associates as a tall,
spare, though muscular man,
with a melancholy air that reminds one
inevitably of Don Quixote. Like
all humourists he is essentially
simple-minded; it is the child's perception
of quaint analogies that flashes in his
work. Like a child he is shy, and
in shyness seems stern; but his good
nature in friendly company is un-
alloyed. He always seems to me a
Puritan born out of date, who has
broadened in sympathy with his modern
environment, yet has never quite
succeeded in throwing out of his blood
the ice of repressed forefathers.20
Other Bulletin staff-mates were
charmed by his passion for music
and the cello which he had constructed
for himself. His insistence
upon a house with a tree and a yard
touched their hearts, and his
19 Review of Reviews (London), II (1890), 657; see also
Richard Heindel, The
American Impact on Great Britain,
1898-1914 (Philadelphia, 1940),
23.
20 Stephens, "Hopkins,"
150; see also "P.F.," "'Hop' As I First Met Him,"
37.
Ohio Artist in Australia 125
vident anxiety to become one of them
removed any lingering
loubts on the score of Yankee airs.
On the other hand, Hopkins was somewhat
taken aback by his
first sight of the Bulletin edifice,
"a long, narrow, two storied
)uilding shaped like the blade of a
mortising chisel," unpainted
inside and out, with ramshackle
equipment, cracks in the floor,
and rooms partitioned off from one
another by rough planks.21
The scene hardly squared with Traill's
eloquent description of a
magnificent structure which would be
the best newspaper plant
in the southern hemisphere--until
Hopkins recalled his captor's
scrupulous use of the future tense. In
fact, the two year old
Bulletin's whole fame and fortune lay in the future, and Hopkins
was to be one of the tools by which
they would be attained.
In 1883 the Bulletin was far
from achieving the immense
influence which it would soon be
wielding. Daring in format,
slangy in style, cynically and
humorously disrespectful of authority,
it consistently supported the underdog
against the squatter aris-
tocracy. Its red cover was a rallying
flag for those workingmen
who within the decade were to form the
Australian Labour party.
Its "uncompromising radicalism and
its violently anti-British tone,"
even its masthead motto,
"Australia for the Australians," stung
conservatives into denouncing it as
blasphemous, immoral, and
dangerous to colonial society. But J.
F. Archibald, co-owner of
the Bulletin, met bitterness
with a still greater bitterness in his
classic denunciation of Tory,
upper-crust Sydney society in 1880:
It was a cant-ridden community.
Cant--the offensive, horrible cant of the
badly-reformed sinner--reigned
everywhere. There was no health in the
public spirit socially and politically;
all was a mean subservience to a spirit
of snobbery and dependency. What was
most Australian in spirit had been
lost by the secessions, first of Victoria,
and then of Queensland. Sydney
socially limped in apish imitation
after London ideas, habits, and manners.
Politically and industrially it was the
same. And over all brooded in law
courts, press and Parliament the
desolating cruelty inherited from "The
[Convict] System." Sydney invited
revolt from existing conditions, and the
21 Hopkins,
"Confessions," 435-436; Stephens, "Hopkins," 150.
126 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Bulletin was the organ of that revolt. It was to stand for more
humanity
in the laws, more freedom in the
Parliament, more healthy independence
in the Press.22
The cartoons of Hopkins were intended
to spearhead the
Bulletin's campaign, for there had been a complete absence of any
first-class graphic talent in Australia
up to this time. But Traill
took no chances; in 1884 he set out on
a second pilgrimage, this
time for England. Once again his
salesmanship and his singular
gift for sensing potential genius
brought results. He returned to
Sydney with a contract for the services
of the twenty-one year old
Cockney, Phil May, later to be known as
one of England's greatest
caricaturists. May's bright sparkling
wit was expressed in economy
of line; "Hop" preferred
humor of situation, and line was secondary
to him, as indeed it was with the whole
American school of
graphic art. Together they advanced the
Bulletin's fortunes rapidly
and at the same time ushered in the
golden age of Australian
caricature. Meanwhile a rather warm
argument ensued among the
public over who was the better artist.
In 1887, however, May
became homesick and returned to London
for good, leaving un-
disputed possession of the Australian
field to his friendly American
rival.23
Although deprived of May,
"Hop" and the Bulletin continued
to prosper, and their influence
expanded throughout the continent.
In 1885 one of Hopkins' most famous
cartoons had created an
Australian symbol roughly analogous to
"Brother Jonathan"--the
"Little Boy of Manly." This
was the occasion when the intense
excitement felt in England over the
death of "Chinese" Gordon
at the hands of the fanatical Mahdi in
Khartoum was being re-
flected throughout the colonies in
miniature form. Imperialists in
New South Wales were proposing that a
military contingent be
22 Hopkins, Hop of the "Bulletin," 82; also, Richard
Jebb, Studies in Colonial
Nationalism (London, 1905), 192-193; Josiah Royce,
"Reflections After a Wandering
Life in Australasia," Atlantic
Monthly, LXIII (1889), 815.
23 Hopkins blamed May's departure upon the blandishments of
"tuft-hunters," or
false friends. Hopkins,
"Confessions," II, 19; see also Building
(Sydney), July 12,
1913, pp. 85-92; Hopkins,
Hop of the "Bulletin," 90-108; Stephens, "Hopkins,"
148-149.
Ohio Artist in Australia 127
sent to the Sudan as evidence of
loyalty and willingness to sacrifice
in the common interest. This
suggestion--which was ultimately
carried out--raised a storm of bitter
criticism from Australian
nationalists, led by the Bulletin. Hopkins,
already predisposed by
his American isolationist background,
heartily agreed with the
Bulletin editorial staff that troubles in Africa were none of
Australia's business. Looking about for
a medium to express his
views graphically, he chanced to read a
brief note in a Sydney
daily to the effect that a little boy
from the upper-middle-class
beach resort suburb of Manly had given
his entire fortune of one
penny to help the cause. In the Bulletin's
next issue there appeared,
in typical Hopkins style, the picture
of a little boy in sailor suit
and ribboned hat standing on the
Australian beach extending a
penny in outstretched fist to England.
Thus was neatly summarized
the colony's infancy, its naive
ignorance of non-domestic affairs,
and the ridiculous insignificance of
the proposed contribution. For
decades the "Little Boy of
Manly" reappeared again and again on
the Bulletin's pages in various
guises as a symbol of Young
Australia and the foolishness of
well-intended impetuosity beyond
its resources.24
Long before his death Hopkins was
rapidly becoming an
Australian legend. Of all the artists
of the nineties, one Australian
critic found "Hopkins-who was
already a revered senior--the
most exclusive."25 Yet the
stiffness and false dignity which were
the least fortunate legacy of his
Puritan heritage were easily pene-
trated by his friends. One of them said
of him:
He sees a world that is on the whole a
reasonably good place for men
and women to live and love in. He looks
on men and women, coolly ap-
praising their values. He never had any
great admiration for politicians,
or for the orthodox clergy. But he
loves simple-minded folk. He is in
sympathy with the idealists and
dreamers, and with all people who see in
life something more than a game of
buying and selling and slipping in
sideways to trip up the other fellow.26
24 Hopkins,
"Confessions," II, 19; Hopkins, Hop of the "Bulletin," 136.
25 Arthur Wilberforce Jose, The
Romantic Nineties (Sydney, 1933), 4.
26 Hopkins, Hop of the "Bulletin," 163-164.
128
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Thus Hopkins had nothing of the brutal
directness of a Nast or a
Gillray. He preferred to make people
smile with, not laugh at
his subjects. Yet he had a social
conscience, too. He waged a
ceaseless war of satire on the clubman,
on the opponents of women's
suffrage, and on exploitation of all
kinds.
It is obvious that he enjoyed the
experience of hobnobbing with
the great. In America he had merely
caricatured the nation's
political and cultural leaders, but in
the smaller Australian pool
he could actually live with them. At
the Athenaeum Club he met
daily as good friends the country's
greatest statesmen--Toby Barton,
who was first prime minister of the
commonwealth, premiers of
New South Wales like G. R. Dibbs,
George Reid, or even Henry
Parkes, as well as a host of luminaries
of lesser wattage. Frequent
visitors to his Balmoral home were the
great artists of Australia's
romantic awakening--Julian Ashton, A.
H. Fullwood, Tom Roberts,
Arthur Streeton, and B. H. Minns. A
favorite Hopkins anecdote
reflects his not unnatural relish of
this situation:
One day Hopkins was accosted by George
Dibbs, the ex-premier
of New South Wales. Dibbs complained
that the Bulletin had been
"awfully dull lately." When
"Hop" asked what the matter was,
Dibbs replied rather vaguely,
"Oh, it used to be funny; you
could get a laugh out of it sometimes; but
I don't see anything in it now."
"Hop" went away pondering
these things in his heart, and the idea
struck him that, owing to Dibbs' loss of
political office, the complainant had
not been caricatured for some time. So
the next week he introduced a
picture of Dibbs in a ridiculous
attitude, with the familiar rakish hat, big
cigar, and all the rest--and lay in
wait. In a few days Dibbs approached
him beaming:
"Well, I see you've taken my
advice! Brightening up your old rag a
bit, eh?"
And it ended with a whiskey and soda.27
Hopkins continued to play an
influential pictorial role in the
27 Stephens, "Hopkins," 147; see also Hopkins,
"Confessions," II, 19-20; Hopkins,
Hop of the "Bulletin,"
126-128, 165-167; Hopkins, "Cartoons
and Cuttings, 1874-
1882"; Livingston Hopkins,
On the Hop! (Sydney, 1905).
Ohio Artist in Australia 129
issues of the day. Federation, which
"Hop" and the Bulletin
supported, was cartooned as a balloon
floating between a lion
labeled "British Imperialism"
and the happy land of Canaan in-
scribed "Independence." When
the Boer War for a second time
raised the question of Australian
military aid for the mother
country, the Bulletin was
violently opposed. In one of its most
unattractive campaigns the "Jew's
War," with its recruitment of
"Cohentingenters" bound for
South Africa and "Jewhannesburg,"
was pilloried furiously, and once more
the "Little Boy of Manly"
appeared, "reeling upon the Sydney
wharf,--brandishing his fare-
well to the departing troopship with an
empty bottle labelled
'Military Spirit.' " One of the
last of Hopkins great cartoons, "The
Statesman's Reward," depicted
ex-Prime Minister George Reid
in tattered hobo garb, and did much to
rehabilitate that fallen
administrator's reputation with the
public.28
Meanwhile the Bulletin was
approaching the zenith of its im-
mense influence in the southern
hemisphere. It dominated the
Australian journalistic field to a
degree quite without a parallel in
American history. And wherever the Bulletin
went, the name and
caricatures of "Hop" went
also. By 1905 it had become
nothing less than an imperial
institution. . . . To the remotest limits of
settlement, in every Australian State,
ragged back numbers of the Bulletin
form the literature of the shearer's
hut and the miner's camp. The pink
cover is no less familiar in New
Zealand, and catches the traveller's eye
upon the bookstalls of Manila and
Hongkong, Singapore and Colombo.
Even farther afield it seems to find a
demand which testifies to its unique
position amongst colonial journals. It
is sent regularly to agencies not only
in London, but in San Francisco and
Vancouver, and in the principal towns
of South Africa. . . . Whatever the
explanation, students of the Empire
cannot afford to ignore a unique
journalistic influence which has expanded
over the two southern continents, and
along the margins of the Pacific.29
With economic security assured, Hopkins
began to think about
retirement. He was receiving what was
considered the huge salary
28 Douglas MacRae McCallum,
"Sir Henry Parkes and Federation," Royal Australian
Historical Society, Journal and
Proceedings, XXXIV (1948), 43; Jebb, Studies in
Colonial Nationalism, 198-199; Stephens, "Hopkins," 146-147.
29 Jebb, Studies in Colonial
Nationalism, 193.
130
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
of £1,000, and there was talk of a
share in the ownership of the
Bulletin. Around him had gathered a group of young Australian
cartoonists, led by Will Dyson and
Norman Lindsay, who looked
up to him and his "regal
austerity" with something akin to awe.
In 1913 he reluctantly ended his
thirty-year connection with the
Bulletin, to be succeeded by the most versatile artist in
Australian
history, Norman Lindsay. But World War
I brought with it a
surge of anti-American feeling in
Australia which left not even
the popular "Hop" unscathed.
In spite of his natural conservatism,
exemplified in his distrust of labor
union growth, Hopkins had
enjoyed a broad circle of
correspondents which included Carruthers
Gould of the Westminister Gazette and
John Burns, the English
labor leader. Now his enemies seized
the opportunity to brand
the Bulletin as "a rag run
by a Yankee Socialist." He was accused
of disloyalty and pro-German
sympathies, partly because the United
States stubbornly remained neutral,
partly because he kept a
dachshund!30 When the open
anti-Americanism of war days was
succeeded by the covert hostility of
"Empire Preference," Hopkins
withdrew more and more into the
seclusion of his home until
death claimed him in 1927.
While there seems little point in
underlining Australian recog-
nition of the "grateful debt of
pleasure" owed to Hopkins, it may
be well to summarize his contributions
to Australian cultural de-
velopment. First, he facilitated the
flow of technological information
in graphic art from the United States
to Australia. In addition to
his own knowledge he was constantly
bedeviling Traill to import
from New York skilled assistants who
were familiar with the
latest developments in photoengraving,
zincography, process photog-
raphy, and the like, requests to which
Traill acceded as often as
he was able. Second, Hopkins was the
pioneer of etching in the
Australian subcontinent. Not long after
his arrival he renewed
this activity of his American days as a
hobby for his leisure moments.
In his studio he gave demonstrations of
the entire etching process
30 The dachshund was mysteriously
poisoned while war hysteria was most intense.
Hopkins, Hop of the
"Bulletin," 19, 148, 181-182, 222-227; Who Was Who,
1916-
1928 (London, 1929), 515.
Ohio Artist in Australia 131
to curious artists like Ashton,
Streeton, and Roberts which infected
them with such enthusiasm that (with
one slight hiatus) Australian
etching has had a continuous record of
development since that
time.31
Hopkins literally founded the school of
Australian caricature
which grew up with the Bulletin, and
it was his touch which gave
to that paper, "more than any
other artist, the distinctive character
for which it became famous."32
He created many an Australian
symbol--the "Little Boy of
Manly," the "Yes-Noism" of George
Reid--and he brought much native
folklore into his cartoons of
the Kiama ghost, the "dry
dog," and the "social gimlet expert."
His principles, which he inculcated by
lecture as well as by example,
exercised an abiding influence upon the
development of the talented
juniors growing up around him. While on
the Bulletin he produced
over 19,000 creations, of which 2,000
originals are in that news-
paper's files.33
Finally there is Hopkins' great
contribution to the development
of Australian nationalism. The
proportionate weight of his cartoons
as an influence is no more precisely
calculable than is the role of
visual education in the learning
process. It has been said that
between them "Hop" and the Bulletin
changed the whole Australian
emphasis from top dog to bottom dog.
His strong predilection for
native elements in all cultural
productivity was not lost upon the
great Australian poet Henry Lawson, who
worked with him in
the Bulletin office. He gave
powerful support to Australia's sensi-
tiveness on its convict origins, to its
race-conscious insistence upon
a White Australia, to its critical
attitude toward immigrant "New
Chums," to national federation,
and to anti-squatter bias. Bumptious
or not, most of these attitudes had
been as characteristic of the
United States as they were of
Australia.
Was Hopkins an American or an
Australian? Here we have the
31 B[ertram] S[tevens] in Art in Australia (Sydney),
Series One, Number Three
(1917); Hopkins, "Confessions," 436-437; Hopkins, Hop
of the "Bulletin," 56,
166-167.
32 Herbert E. Badham, A Study of Australian Art (Sydney,
1949), 182.
33 William Moore, The Story
of Australian Art, from the Earliest Known Art
of
the Continent
to the Art of Today (2
vols., Sydney, 1934), II, 113-114; Hopkins,
Hop of the "Bulletin," 22; Stephens, "Hopkins," 150.
132
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
problem of the voluntary expatriate and
his nationality all over
again, a problem which has never been
settled satisfactorily.34
Conclusive to many will be the fact
that to the day of his death
he resolutely refused to give up his
American citizenship, although
quite willing for his children to grow
up as one hundred percent
Australians. At the same time he loved
his adoptive country and
was sincerely anxious to fall into
Australian ways. "After all,
there were no great points of
difference between the American of
that day and the Australian with whom
he came to fraternize."
Both had the same frontier traditions
of hardship, novelty, and
triumphant achievement. He never
regretted leaving the United
States.35
While proud of his English ancestry,
Hopkins' Australianism
made him appear anti-British. He was
caustic when snobbery and
affectations were justified as loyalty
to the British way of life. He
cartooned against titles, against the
craze for "foreign" experts
from England, against the
"Pommies"--stuffed shirt migrants from
Great Britain who seemed able only to
criticize--against the conceit
of the British Association of Sydney
and the prudish controversy
over "decent" beach costume.
Much of this too was a reflection of
his American point of view. He knew his
American history well,
and thought he "could see an
analogy between the growth of the
United States and that of
Australia"--a vision which he was neither
the first nor the last to share.36
But Hopkins' pro-American bias always
stood out clearly. He
delighted in American allusions. He
called his den the "Wigwam";
his close friend Fullwood was known
familiarly as "Uncle Remus,"
and he in turn as "an old
Puritan"; he signed one of his occasional
poems as "Shortfellow."
Neither he nor his wife ever lost their
American accents or their Yankee
joke-sense, both of which oc-
casionally caused them embarrassment.
Hopkins maintained his
American correspondence and kept the
autographed likenesses of
34 For example, should John Singleton
Copley, Benjamin West, James McNeill
Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Henry
James, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden be con-
sidered English or American? Should Ezra
Pound be considered Italian or American?
35 Hopkins, Hop of the
"Bulletin," 73; "P. F.," " 'Hop' As I First Met
Him," 37.
36 Hopkins, Hop of The "Bulletin," 197-198; Hopkins, On
the Hop!
Ohio Artist in Australia 133
Artemus Ward and Josh Billings hanging
on his office walls. He
followed American events closely and
often with misgivings, as
when Upton Sinclair's The Jungle got
a cartoon from him inscribed
"Anarchy's new weapon, if anarchy
knew it." The melting pot
controversy concerned him deeply. His
daughter tells us: "There
were times when he regretted the
cosmopolitan fusion taking place
in the U.S.A. and the proportionately
smaller leaven of Teutonic
blood, but there was no diminution of
his pride of nationality or
his appreciation of the great
development and achievements of his
native land. He always saluted the
Stars and Stripes, and not
casually or perfunctorily but with
ceremonious dignity and intent."37
Even to his friends Hopkins always
seemed American rather than
Australian. A. G. Stephens said in 1905
that "he still remains
essentially the 'comic artist' of his
American beginnings," and in
1913
another critic found his spirit "essentially American."38
Hopkins returned to the United States
twice, in 1903 and 1914.
The first trip was to Bellefontaine and
Toledo, where he revisited
the haunts of his boyhood with his last
surviving sister and a
sister-in-law. It was rather
depressing; his friends were gone and
even the old farmhouse of his earliest
memories had disappeared.
He came back for the last time in 1914,
just after his retirement,
to tour the battlefields of the Civil
War.39
37 Hopkins,
Hop of the "Bulletin," 35-36; also, ibid., 26, 176-178,
194-204;
Hopkins, On the Hop!, xxx;
"P.F.," "'Hop' As I First Met Him," 37.
38 Building, July
12, 1913, p. 92; Hopkins, Hop of the "Bulletin," 216-220;
Stephens, "Hopkins," 146-147.
39 His veteran's pride was always
strong, although he could joke about it, too,
as when he wrote, "I claim to be
the only survivor of that great conflict who is
still merely a private. I am not even a
colonel." Stephens, "Hopkins," 143.
The following letter was preserved among
his effects, dated July 23, 1896, and
addressed to "Livingston Hopkins,
Sidney, S. Wales [sic. This misspelling of Sydney,
still common among Ohioans, is perhaps
drawn from the Sidney in Shelby County.]:
"Dear Sir and Comrade,
The survivors of the 130th regiment Ohio
infantry whereof you was a member in
'C' Coy. Capt. Richard Waite, will hold
a reunion again this year on Wed. August
26th, 1896. You might appear on the
grounds once more where you romped and
played in your boyhood and where you enlisted to help
Uncle Sam. If you contemplate
a trip to Toledo, Ohio, arrange it to
meet your joyful comrades of the 130th. The
reunion will be at Sylvania. If you
cannot come send a letter of regret to the regiment
in reunion and a gold dollar more or
less as your contribution towards expenses.
Yours truly,
J. B. Fella
Secretary and Treasurer."
Hopkins, Hop of the "Bulletin," 140-141.
134
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
One might easily think of Livingston
Hopkins as the Thomas
Nast of Australia, for the parallels
are many. Like Nast, he came
as an immigrant to a new land. Like
Nast he was recognized before
his death as his country's greatest
living cartoonist. Both men
brought confidence and the spirit of
originality to their respective
artistic milieus. Both created eternal
symbols which will be re-
membered as long as history is studied
in the United States and
Australia--the Tammany Tiger, the Full
Dinner Pail, the Little
Boy of Manly. Both assisted the growth
of aggressive nationalism,
and if Hopkins lacked the remorseless
crusader spirit which
characterized Nast, then his editorial
associates on the Bulletin
more than made up this deficiency. In
him and his career we have
one of the fine examples of the means
by which American culture
has been transmitted to the rest of the
world--for better or for
worse!