Review

Jackie Ormes is considered the first African-American cartoonist in the United States. She created four comic strips, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem (1937), Candy (1945), Patty Jo 'n' Ginger (1946), and Torchy Brown, Heartbeats (1950). They reflected the struggles of African Americans who were part of the great migration from the South to the North. As a journalist, she was a social columnist. The popularity of her comic strip led to the creation of the Patty Jo doll in 1947, the first African-American doll based on a comic book character (now a highly prized collector's item). 

Justifications

• First African-American woman to produce nationally published newspaper strips, and author of the Torchy Brown strip and the Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger cartoon.
• She was inducted, posthumously, in 2014, into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.
• In October 2016, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission erected a plaque in her honour to commemorate and remember her work in helping to break down the racial and gender stereotypes of the time.
• She was included, in 2018, in the Eisner Award Hall of Fame, one of the most important recognitions of the creative work of artists in the comic industry in the United States.

Biography

Jackie Ormes was an American cartoonist, journalist, artist and activist, known for being the first African-American woman to produce nationally published newspaper strips, and for being the author of the Torchy Brown strip and the Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger. 
She drew and wrote throughout high school. She showed her first caricatures, about her classmates and teachers, in the school yearbook, of which she was also the art director, in the 1929-1930 academic year. During this time, she wrote a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly African-American newspaper published on Saturdays, in which she did her first writing job covering a boxing match, which made her a lover of the sport. 
She got her start in journalism as a proofreader for the Pittsburgh Courier. She also worked as a freelance editor and writer, writing police acts, court cases or articles on social issues.  
As a cartoonist, she gained recognition for being the creator of Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem and Torchy in Heartbeats newspaper strips, and the Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger and Candy cartoons, which ran in national newspapers in the United States, Pittsburgh Courier and The Chicago Defender, during 1937 and 1956, being the first African-American cartoonist to achieve it. 
She retired from caricature in 1956, although she continued with her artistic production, with murals, still life, and portraits until her rheumatoid arthritis allowed her to do so. 
She volunteered in her community, South Side (Chicago) collaborating with the production of fashion and entertainment shows to raise funds. She was also a member of the founding board of directors of the DuSable Museum of African American History, the oldest museum dedicated to the study and preservation of African American history, culture and art, located in Chicago. 
Ormes was a collector of dolls, with 150 ancient and modern figures to her credit, and was active in the Guys and Gals Fantastique Doll Club, a chapter of the United Federation of Doll Clubs of Chicago. 

Works

Bibliography

Goldstein, Nancy (2008). The First African American Woman Cartoonist,  University of Michigan Press.  

Didactic approach

Some of her vignettes can be used in English classes. 
She can also be studied in Plastic and Visual Education as a model to create comics in class. 

Documents