William Henry Mauldin (1921 - 2003)

Ancestors

Biography

William was born in 1921. Bill was an American editorial cartoonist. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work. He is most famous for his WW II cartoons depicting American soldiers. He is especially known for "Willie and Joe" who were cartoon characters, who depicted soldiers representing "GI's" in the war.

He was born in New Mexico. After his parents divorced he and his older brother, Sydney moved to Phoenix, AZ in 1937. He attended Phoenix Union High School. He began his interest in journalism here. He wrote for PUHS's Coyote Journal. Bill did not graduate with his class (he received his diploma in 1945). He took classes in 1939 at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts where he studied political cartooning with Vaughn Shoemaker. While in Chicago he met Will Lang Jr., and they became friends. Will Lang became a journalist and bureau head for Life magazine.

In 1940 Mauldin enlisted in the Arizona National Guard. He was in the 45 Infantry Division. He volunteered to work for the unit's newspaper, drawing cartoons about regular soldiers or "dogfaces." Eventually he created two cartoon infantrymen, Willie and Joe, who represented the average American GI. This brought his attention to "The Stars and Stripes" a United States military newspaper. He joined their staff. He continued with his cartoons and was soon promoted to Sergeant. He was given latitude in getting his material. He was criticized by General George S. Patton for his depictions of the military GI. However, he continued his work without compromise and with the blessings of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who considered "Stars and Stripes" the soldier's newspaper. He said that it helped their morale.

In a 1989 interview, Mauldin said, "I always admired Patton, Oh, sure the stupid bastard was crazy. He was insane. He thought he was living in the Dark Ages. Soldiers were peasants to him. I didn't like that attitude, but I certainly respected his theories and the techniques he used to get his men out of the foxholes."

Mauldin's cartoons made him a hero to the common soldier. GI's credited him with helping them to get through the rigors of war. In 1943 he was wounded in the shoulder by a German mortar while visiting a machine gun crew near Monte Cassino. The injury only served to increase his popularity amongst the soldiers.

As the war ended, he received the Legion of Merit for his cartoons. Mauldin wanted Willie and Joe to get killed on the last day of combat, but Stars and Stripes dissuaded him from doing this.

In 1945, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Editorial Cartooning with his series, "Up Front with Mauldin." After the war he freelanced for awhile, and then joined the St. Louis, Missouri, "Post-Dispatch" newspaper in 1958. He was awarded his second, Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1959, for a cartoon depicting Soviet Union writer, Boris Pasternak as a Soviet prisoner asking another prisoner, "I won the Nobel Prize for literature; what was your crime?"

In 1962 he he joined the Chicago, Illinois "Sun-Times" Newspaper and remained there until his retirement in 1991.

Mauldin won the National Cartoonist Society Award for Editorial Cartooning. He also won the Reuben Award as well in 1961.

In 1963 he made his most famous cartoon following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It was about the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial with his head in his hands.

In 1965, he ran unsuccessfully for the United States Congress as a Democrat, in New York's 28th congressional district. Mauldin said about his run for Congress:

I jumped in with both feet and campaigned for seven or eight months. I found myself stumping around up in these rural districts and my own background did hurt there. A farmer knows a farmer when he sees one. So when I was talking about their problems I was a very sincere candidate, but when they would ask me questions that had to do with foreign policy or national policy, obviously I was pretty far to the left of the mainstream up there. Again, I'm an old Truman Democrat, I'm not that far left, but by their lives I was pretty far left.

In 1969, he was commissioned by the National Safety Council to illustrate its annual booklet on traffic safety. His cartoons were under copyright although articles throughout the pamphlets were not.

In 1985, Mauldin won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.

He was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1991. On Sep, 1991, Sergeant Major of the Army, Jack Tilley presented Mauldin with a personal letter from the Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, and a hardbound book with notes from other senior Army leaders and celebrities, including, Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, and Tom Hanks. Tilley promoted Mauldin to the honorary rank of first sergeant.^[1]

He passed away in 2003.^[2] He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA. He battled with Alzheimer's Disease and a bathtub scalding.

Sources

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Mauldin
2. ↑ https://findagrave.com/memorial/7106220

• https://familysearch.org/tree/person/details/9N5S-MQD
• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7106220/bill-mauldin: accessed 22 April 2023), memorial page for Bill Mauldin (29 Oct 1921–22 Jan 2003), Find a Grave Memorial ID 7106220, citing Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Arlington County, Virginia, USA; Maintained by Find a Grave.