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The Canadian Historical Review 85.1 (2004) 204-205



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Great Canadian Political Cartoons, 1915 to 1945. Charles Hou and Cynthia Hou. Vancouver: Moody's Lookout Press 2002. Pp. iv, 240, illus. $39.95

Charles and Cynthia Hou draw selectively from the political cartoons published in the daily press, farm periodicals, and labour newspapers to argue that, during the war-interwar-war period from 1915 to 1945, Britain's power and influence in Canada declined and Canada's independence and ties to the United States increased. The cartoons are organized chronologically, with brief explanations by the authors included below each illustration. Several themes prevail that are of interest to social historians including conscription during the First and Second World wars, French-language rights, Native self-government, immigration, women's suffrage, prohibition, conditions for labour, imperialism, and nationalism.

Political cartoons are useful non-textual representations that historians have yet to fully use the writing of Canadian cultural and political history. Unfortunately, the authors seem only to have selected those cartoons that bolster their own conservative view of Canadian history as a progressive evolution from colony to semi-independent dominion within the British Empire to independent nation. They do not locate the cartoons or the cartoonists in the publishing community, or within the political groups with which they were aligned. They simply suggest in the preface that the cartoonists for the major daily newspapers tended to support the mainstream parties and were sometimes forced to limit their political comments, presumably by their editors. A consideration of the political perspective of the various papers from which the cartoons were drawn might have led the authors to comment on how and why their political comments were 'limited' and why the cartoonist chose to represent an issue in a particular way.

A fuller understanding of the work of the political cartoonist might have led the authors to consider the tools of the political cartoonist, particularly their use of symbols, allegories, and a host of iconographic characters, types, and physiognomic conventions. Cartoonists use the visual to build a critique of state policies and to present their view of the social issues of the day. The authors might have explained the rich use of animalistic representations by several of the cartoonists. Why, for instance, are capitalists represented as pigs, getting fat on government contracts and patronage? Why is Hitler depicted using the representation of the ape?

The discourses of nationalism are a central organizing theme of the book. According to the authors, Canada evolved into an independent [End Page 205] nation between 1915 and 1945. They do not consider, however, how this idea of nationalism was contested in cartoons, and how other competing nationalisms, most notably French Canadian nationalism, were contested during this period and represented by cartoonists from a variety of political perspectives. The image of 'Miss Canada' is used in several of the cartoons included in the book to represent the nation and the emergence of a new variant of national identity. In the iconography of nation, woman, as a national symbol, was the protector of the nation, as well as the guardian of continuity and stability. The visual symbols in this allegory had its origins in the conventions of ancient Greek art, where cities and provinces were idealized as female figures dressed in togas. The authors might have drawn on the image of woman as nation to explore changing national identities in Canada between 1815 and 1945. In one of the cartoons, for instance, 'Miss Canada,' dressed in a toga and emblazoned in a banner that represents 'A New Canadian National Spirit,' rises above the devastation of the First World War to protect the nation - a variant of national identity based on agricultural and industrial expansion. The cartoon begs a consideration of why this idea of Canadian nationalism surfaced after the First World War.

This compilation of political cartoons might be of use in undergraduate Canadian survey courses. The cartoons might be used to encourage students to think critically about how such issues as Canada's participation in the two world wars were represented...

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