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SMNTY Classics: Jackie Ormes · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not going to
0:07
Speaker 1: stuff I've never told you protection of I heart radio.
0:18
Speaker 1: So as we record this and as it comes out
0:21
Speaker 1: is International Women's History Months. We kind of missed Women's
0:24
Speaker 1: International History Day, but we feel like we do this
0:27
Speaker 1: all the time right around right that's kind of my show,
0:31
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the whole thing. So we thought
0:36
Speaker 1: we'd bring back some classics with our good friend Eves
0:39
Speaker 1: about some women in history. We really made some big moves,
0:43
Speaker 1: and I wanted to bring back this one about Jackie Orbs,
0:46
Speaker 1: who really made a lot of history and uh made
0:49
Speaker 1: a lot of ground in the world of women cartoonists.
0:51
Speaker 1: Because I was, as I've mentioned me and for a
0:55
Speaker 1: lot of people, my Quarantine University was last weekend March,
0:59
Speaker 1: and I was just thinking back over the two years,
1:02
Speaker 1: what what are things that I have done that are new.
1:05
Speaker 1: One of the things I did over Quarantine is I've
1:07
Speaker 1: read a lot of comics. I have read a lot
1:10
Speaker 1: of comics, and I'm glad that I did. It's never
1:12
Speaker 1: that I didn't want to. And I've talked before about
1:14
Speaker 1: I grew up like in comics. I think I talked
1:16
Speaker 1: about it in here, but I just, you know, there's
1:19
Speaker 1: so much entertainment all the time, and I was always
1:22
Speaker 1: going all over the place. It was, you know, it's
1:24
Speaker 1: a tragic reason to have the time to do something,
1:27
Speaker 1: but it was nice that I got to do it.
1:30
Speaker 1: And now I'm like hooked, so I don't know what
1:32
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. They reeled me and Samantha, they really
1:38
Speaker 1: they did. Oh jeez. Although now I'm all confused about
1:43
Speaker 1: Cannon and I don't know what's going on anymore. But
1:46
Speaker 1: you know, you have to be the one to tell
1:48
Speaker 1: me about it. Though I know, I feel like every
1:52
Speaker 1: every Star Wars related or fictional woman you don't know
1:55
Speaker 1: related episode is kind of for you. It's kind of me, Samantha.
2:00
Speaker 1: Remember when we talked about this a little bit ago.
2:02
Speaker 1: Well here you go, yes, yes, um, and I have
2:05
Speaker 1: been excited to see you know, there's still as with
2:08
Speaker 1: a lot of entertainment we're talking about, there's still a
2:11
Speaker 1: huge gap. But I'm excited to see more women and
2:13
Speaker 1: marginalized people in this field and doing this work and
2:18
Speaker 1: in the realm of comics and and sort of this
2:20
Speaker 1: fan stuff that I complained in a recent happy hour,
2:24
Speaker 1: and I was like, I always been men. Well this
2:26
Speaker 1: is yeah. I don't want to say that there aren't
2:28
Speaker 1: women and people of color doing this and there haven't been,
2:31
Speaker 1: because they have and Jack yours as one who absolutely
2:36
Speaker 1: made some real waves with her work, So please enjoy
2:39
Speaker 1: this classic episode. Hello, this is Annie, Oh this is Samantha,
2:47
Speaker 1: and welcome to stuff I never told your protection of
2:50
Speaker 1: I heart media. Today. We are so excited, so excited
3:03
Speaker 1: because it's time for another female first, which means we
3:07
Speaker 1: are joined by our good friend and co worker Eves. Hi. Eves, Hey, y'all, Hi,
3:15
Speaker 1: how how are you doing? Eves? I'm doing well. You know,
3:19
Speaker 1: I have my ups and downs, as I imagine every
3:21
Speaker 1: y'all and everyone else are having right now. But um,
3:25
Speaker 1: I'm doing really well. I'm like really steeped in history,
3:27
Speaker 1: so I'm having to try to make sure that i
3:29
Speaker 1: stay really present in the moment since I'm doing so
3:32
Speaker 1: much history research. I'm like, is it or is it
3:35
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen? Who knows? Because I'm not going to like it.
3:40
Speaker 1: You have an exaggerated version of what everyone is experiencing,
3:45
Speaker 1: wherein we don't know the date or what day of
3:47
Speaker 1: the week it is. You're like, is it nineteen nineteen, right.
3:52
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this the other day. Yeah, I
3:55
Speaker 1: was like, well, I like, because I'm not there's there's
3:59
Speaker 1: not that much interaction with the world around me. I'm
4:01
Speaker 1: like so steeped in history. It's just become a whole
4:06
Speaker 1: thing for me. That is such a specific like history
4:12
Speaker 1: podcast researcher problem. I love it. And you aren't coming
4:16
Speaker 1: to us from your home studios, uh as Samantha and
4:23
Speaker 1: I are. I am coming from my closet. Would you
4:26
Speaker 1: describe your home studios for us? So? Um, the quote
4:30
Speaker 1: unquote home studio that I'm in right now is the
4:34
Speaker 1: room that I usually work from. So it's my study,
4:37
Speaker 1: have all my books in here. I'm typically in a
4:39
Speaker 1: closet when I'm recording this day in history class. Um.
4:43
Speaker 1: But this is obviously this is a special occasion because
4:45
Speaker 1: I get to share the studio with you too today.
4:48
Speaker 1: So um, I needed a little bit more more room
4:52
Speaker 1: and comfort so I could actually move and not be
4:56
Speaker 1: in a dark space with no light sources as my computer. Yeah,
5:01
Speaker 1: and what else has been here? Um? Got a little
5:04
Speaker 1: art and a desk, a yoga mat on the floor,
5:07
Speaker 1: and some like floor pillows and it's pretty Uh, it's
5:11
Speaker 1: pretty low key, a low key studio if you want
5:15
Speaker 1: to call it a studio. It looks nice. I mean
5:17
Speaker 1: it's got a lot of natural light. I say, as
5:21
Speaker 1: I'm like garishly lit by this home depot lamp. And also,
5:25
Speaker 1: by the way, listeners, if you don't follow Eaves on Instagram,
5:28
Speaker 1: her instagram is amazing and all this amazing yoga stuff.
5:31
Speaker 1: So Sminty has been doing these yoga sessions and we
5:36
Speaker 1: are not quite as professional as perhaps some would want,
5:43
Speaker 1: but yes, I always really appreciate your posts and they're
5:46
Speaker 1: they're amazing, so check that, and I appreciate what you're
5:51
Speaker 1: doing too, because it's like to me, you know, any
5:53
Speaker 1: amount of yoga that one can have more in their life,
5:56
Speaker 1: I'm all here for it. Yes, yes it is. It's
5:59
Speaker 1: been really sexually yeah yeah, okay, So for today, I
6:06
Speaker 1: absolutely loved your pick. Can you tell us the woman
6:10
Speaker 1: you are have brought for us? Eaves? Yeah, So today
6:13
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about Jackie Arms. And she's one
6:16
Speaker 1: of those people who I got to touch on a
6:18
Speaker 1: little bit in this day in history class, but that's
6:20
Speaker 1: only so long, and I just really wanted to dig
6:22
Speaker 1: into her story a little bit more because it truly
6:26
Speaker 1: is fascinating. Her story is one of those first that's like,
6:30
Speaker 1: as we always put our disclaimer on first, like first
6:33
Speaker 1: have a lot of social implications and like there are
6:36
Speaker 1: a lot of caveats to first, but in this case,
6:39
Speaker 1: it's one of those first where she was the first
6:42
Speaker 1: Black American woman cartoonists to have her own syndicated comic strip. Um.
6:46
Speaker 1: It was read across the US, read widely, but it's
6:49
Speaker 1: still one of those industries where there aren't a lot
6:52
Speaker 1: of black women in it. And obviously the industry is
6:56
Speaker 1: very different now than it was when she was working
6:58
Speaker 1: in the Nine Dreds. But who doesn't love, you know, cartoons.
7:04
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I really enjoyed digging into her, her art
7:09
Speaker 1: in the comics that she's done. I had had like legitimately,
7:13
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, this is great, this is so good. Yeah,
7:18
Speaker 1: why don't we we get started into her her life
7:21
Speaker 1: and all of her accomplishments. Cool, Yeah, let's do it. Um.
7:25
Speaker 1: So she was born Zelda Mavin Jackson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
7:30
Speaker 1: around nineteen eleven. Her father was William Winfield Jackson and
7:35
Speaker 1: her mother was Mary Brown Jackson. So her father, he
7:39
Speaker 1: had a theater in a printing business, and her mother
7:42
Speaker 1: was a seamstress and she loved music in the arts,
7:46
Speaker 1: so that was a part of her life early on.
7:49
Speaker 1: She also had a sister named Dolores, and her father
7:53
Speaker 1: died in an accident when she was young, and that
7:55
Speaker 1: left her and her younger sister in the care of
7:57
Speaker 1: their mother and other family members. They lived with their
8:00
Speaker 1: grandmother while their mother worked as a living domestic worker,
8:05
Speaker 1: and so as a child she moved with the family
8:08
Speaker 1: to Monongahela, which is in a suburb of Pittsburgh. She
8:12
Speaker 1: drew a lot from the time of her childhood. So
8:15
Speaker 1: not only did she have those arts influences around her
8:18
Speaker 1: when she was a child, she was already doing a
8:21
Speaker 1: lot of her own drawings. So she published her first
8:24
Speaker 1: cartoons in high school yearbooks around nine and nineteen thirty.
8:29
Speaker 1: So that was I think as a you know, a
8:31
Speaker 1: lot of people start getting those experiences with art and
8:35
Speaker 1: with the careers that they want to go into early
8:38
Speaker 1: on in their high school years, and that is that
8:40
Speaker 1: was the case with her. So she was working in
8:41
Speaker 1: her for her high school yearbook, and so while she
8:44
Speaker 1: was still a student at Monongahela High School, she inquired
8:48
Speaker 1: about working at the Pittsburgh Courier. So the Pittsburgh Courier
8:52
Speaker 1: was a black newspaper established in nineteen o seven. It
8:56
Speaker 1: was one of the first black newspapers to publish both
8:59
Speaker 1: low goal and national editions. So they assigned her to
9:03
Speaker 1: cover a boxing match and they sent kind of the
9:05
Speaker 1: chaperone with her. She did that, and then after she
9:09
Speaker 1: graduated high school, she moved to Pittsburgh and she began
9:12
Speaker 1: working as a proof reader at the Pittsburgh Courier. So
9:15
Speaker 1: kind of a natural transition from the work that she
9:19
Speaker 1: got with them in high school and then moving to
9:21
Speaker 1: work with him after she graduated high school. So she
9:25
Speaker 1: was working as a freelance reporter. She was covering police
9:28
Speaker 1: beats in court cases and human interest stories, but she
9:32
Speaker 1: was really interested in drawing, like that was the thing
9:34
Speaker 1: that pulled to her, even though she was doing all
9:37
Speaker 1: of this reporting work. She was really interested in drawing.
9:41
Speaker 1: And so she married Earl ORMs in the nineteen thirties
9:45
Speaker 1: and they had a daughter together, Jacqueline, But unfortunately she
9:49
Speaker 1: died of a brain tumor when she was very young.
9:51
Speaker 1: But Jackie she released her first cartoon in nineteen thirty seven,
9:56
Speaker 1: and that was Torti Brown and Dixie to Harlem. So
9:59
Speaker 1: this is the first cartoon that we see over the
10:02
Speaker 1: course of her life. She has four, so this is
10:05
Speaker 1: her first one. So it lasted for about a year
10:07
Speaker 1: from May and nineteen thirty seven to April of nineteen
10:10
Speaker 1: thirty eight, and that was published in the Pittsburgh Courier, which,
10:15
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, you know, Pittsburgh Courier had different
10:20
Speaker 1: editions across the United States. So that helped her work
10:24
Speaker 1: as we go on throughout the through the rest of
10:27
Speaker 1: her cartoons, throughout the rest of her career. Um that
10:30
Speaker 1: helps her get a national readership that comes along with
10:34
Speaker 1: her being in the Pittsburgh Courier. So the comic strip
10:38
Speaker 1: it followed Torto Brown, black teen from a small town
10:41
Speaker 1: in Mississippi, who moved to New York and had a
10:45
Speaker 1: numerous amount of escapades and along the way found fame
10:49
Speaker 1: at the Cotton Club, which was an actual popular nightclub
10:52
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties. And so even
10:56
Speaker 1: though Torto Brown is kind of going on this very
10:58
Speaker 1: singular adventure because specific to her, there are also parts
11:01
Speaker 1: that mirror Jackie's life herself and then like all of
11:06
Speaker 1: the social things that were happening, whether that's related to
11:09
Speaker 1: you know, music at the time or people who were
11:12
Speaker 1: in the music in the art scene at the time. Um,
11:16
Speaker 1: those are people who feature in and inspire the comic.
11:21
Speaker 1: So at the cond Club, Torti gets to meet all
11:23
Speaker 1: these people like Duke Ellington and cav Callaway and she
11:27
Speaker 1: dances with Bill Bojangles Robinson. From the beginning, like from
11:31
Speaker 1: the front, from the jump, Jackie's really clear about the
11:34
Speaker 1: characters that she likes to portray, and she has this
11:37
Speaker 1: strong black female character that she puts in all of
11:41
Speaker 1: her comics, and that's the case with this one. So
11:44
Speaker 1: Torti was super outspoken, attractive, and not subservient at all,
11:50
Speaker 1: and she wasn't a caricature as so many other depictions
11:54
Speaker 1: of black people in general, and black women specifically when
11:57
Speaker 1: that comes to you know, caricatures like the ammy and
12:01
Speaker 1: just all of the other derogatory stereotypes that people would
12:04
Speaker 1: place on images of black girls and black women in
12:08
Speaker 1: the media. Torti was not that at all. She was
12:11
Speaker 1: super outspoken, She had a lot to say and a
12:14
Speaker 1: lot of meaningful things to say, and she wasn't a
12:17
Speaker 1: caricature at all, so that that comic just followed a
12:21
Speaker 1: lot of her adventures. But at the same time, it
12:24
Speaker 1: addressed a lot of social issues that were happening and
12:27
Speaker 1: that a lot of other people weren't talking about, and
12:30
Speaker 1: especially not black female artists or black female specifically black
12:35
Speaker 1: female artists who were making cartoons. Um, it was addressing
12:38
Speaker 1: racism and the challenges that black people moving north face.
12:42
Speaker 1: So there was a lot happening there um purposefully and
12:46
Speaker 1: just by matter of it being Jackie who was publishing
12:50
Speaker 1: the cartoons in the newspaper itself, right, because I imagine
12:54
Speaker 1: now I know for sure it was mostly white men
12:57
Speaker 1: and other industry dominated by mostly white men still is
13:01
Speaker 1: unfortunately to some degree, yes, and um, white men, there
13:05
Speaker 1: were also white women who were working, and they were
13:08
Speaker 1: black men who were working and who were her contemporaries
13:11
Speaker 1: who were also producing cartoons that had messages that were
13:16
Speaker 1: related to racism and some of the some of the
13:18
Speaker 1: same things that that we're talking about, all of the
13:20
Speaker 1: same things. Because later in life, you know, Jackie gets
13:23
Speaker 1: into things like abuse against women and like, you know,
13:25
Speaker 1: some really some things that not nobody else was talking about. Cartoons.
13:29
Speaker 1: But there were other people, but they didn't quite do
13:32
Speaker 1: it in the way that she did it in terms
13:34
Speaker 1: of like white women were drawing white women characters a
13:37
Speaker 1: lot of the time, and um, if it was a
13:39
Speaker 1: black man, maybe he wasn't talking about the same issues
13:42
Speaker 1: that she was and her characters. While other people may
13:46
Speaker 1: have relied on even if they were giving off social messages,
13:50
Speaker 1: they might have relied on more specific characters to speak
13:55
Speaker 1: about these social messages. Whereas Torchy in this case was
14:00
Speaker 1: a woman. She was very outspoken, and she was very
14:04
Speaker 1: like subversive and the things that she was saying, and
14:08
Speaker 1: she was a singular character who was very well developed
14:11
Speaker 1: and had a lot of individual spirit. Yes, yeah, absolutely
14:17
Speaker 1: absolutely so, as I said earlier, she had a huge
14:20
Speaker 1: readership across the United States and it lasted for about
14:24
Speaker 1: a year, but its original run, once that was done,
14:26
Speaker 1: there around fifty three strips of Torchy. So Jackie and Earle,
14:32
Speaker 1: there were some moves that happened here. They moved to Salem,
14:35
Speaker 1: Ohio for a couple of years, and they moved to Chicago,
14:39
Speaker 1: and this is Chicago is basically where she spends the
14:42
Speaker 1: rest of her life. And as we know, Chicago is
14:44
Speaker 1: just a huge place when it comes to the arts
14:47
Speaker 1: and cultural scene for black people. Um. They were on
14:50
Speaker 1: the South Side of Chicago, which was also really big
14:52
Speaker 1: for that at the time, for a lot of their
14:54
Speaker 1: life together. UM. So once she got to Chicago, she
14:57
Speaker 1: spent just like a short brief st studying drawing in
15:01
Speaker 1: a nine degree program at the Art Institute of Chicago.
15:05
Speaker 1: And when she was there, she began working for the
15:07
Speaker 1: Chicago Defender, which was a black weekly, UM, and she
15:11
Speaker 1: covered news there. But she wasn't there for long at all,
15:14
Speaker 1: for reasons that remained not quite clear. Um. But in
15:18
Speaker 1: nineteen they started publishing her single panel cartoon, Candy, that
15:22
Speaker 1: only ran for about four months. So Candy was a
15:27
Speaker 1: domestic worker who worked for a rich white woman and
15:29
Speaker 1: so she like she was very subversive in a similar
15:33
Speaker 1: vein to Torchy, and she, like I said, that didn't
15:37
Speaker 1: last that long. But that year, that same year, she
15:40
Speaker 1: was already back putting work in the Pittsburgh Courier, even
15:44
Speaker 1: though she was still living in Chicago. So this is
15:48
Speaker 1: the comic that's most prominent or that lasted for the longest.
15:51
Speaker 1: The thing that really got her a lot of the
15:54
Speaker 1: spotlight was Patty Joe and Ginger. Um. The Courier began
15:57
Speaker 1: publishing that comic, which was also a sing old panel cartoon.
16:01
Speaker 1: And I really love this one, Like, there are just
16:03
Speaker 1: so many. If y'all get a chance to to look
16:07
Speaker 1: at Jackie rams Is work, please go check out some
16:11
Speaker 1: of Patty Joe and Ginger because I just love the characters, um,
16:14
Speaker 1: and they are so stylished. I was like, wow, I
16:18
Speaker 1: want I want all of their outfits. Yes, I totally agree, right,
16:24
Speaker 1: I was looking at the one with the paper dolls
16:25
Speaker 1: where she had the different sun dresses and side. I
16:27
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, if I had a body that like great,
16:30
Speaker 1: I would want that. That would that would be if
16:32
Speaker 1: I actually got without anymore, I would wear that. For sure.
16:35
Speaker 1: You can dress something inside and your body looks fantastic.
16:39
Speaker 1: Thank you. Well that would let me rephrase that, not
16:42
Speaker 1: that meaning just I'm definitely quarantining. Well it seems like
16:49
Speaker 1: a wink wink statement, you know what I mean? You know,
16:53
Speaker 1: you know, but yes, she was very very stylish. Yes,
17:01
Speaker 1: so it was Patty Joe was the little girl and
17:06
Speaker 1: Ginger was the older sister. So they were separated by
17:09
Speaker 1: like twenty years or so. Like Ginger was twenties something
17:13
Speaker 1: and Patty Joe was like a five year old, and Ginger,
17:16
Speaker 1: the older sister, never spoke she This is another reason
17:18
Speaker 1: I love her. Not only were her clothes amazing, she
17:20
Speaker 1: just like had all the best facial expressions back to
17:24
Speaker 1: whatever Patty Joe would say, because Patty Joe had all
17:26
Speaker 1: the wise cracks. So you know, both of them kind
17:30
Speaker 1: of fed off of each other in that dynamic. And
17:33
Speaker 1: what was interesting about that is that, like you mentioned earlier,
17:36
Speaker 1: Annie or asking about other people are saying, you know,
17:39
Speaker 1: other people weren't necessarily making these kind of cartoons and
17:42
Speaker 1: giving these social messages. They definitely weren't being spoken through
17:46
Speaker 1: a child that was the age of Patty Joe. So
17:49
Speaker 1: it kind of gave Jackie a different end into saying
17:55
Speaker 1: what she wanted to say and saying it very clearly,
17:59
Speaker 1: like she didn't mince any worse in in the cartoons
18:02
Speaker 1: at all. Like if this is about McCarthyism, you can
18:04
Speaker 1: tell us about McCarthyism, Or if this is about housing
18:07
Speaker 1: equality issues, then you're going to be able to tell
18:10
Speaker 1: that from the cartoon. There was no it wasn't really
18:12
Speaker 1: a subtext or undertones. It was like heavy overtone. Um,
18:16
Speaker 1: but coming through the mouth of a little girl. Um.
18:21
Speaker 1: And yeah. So she, like I said, she commented on
18:25
Speaker 1: so many things in McCarthyism was one of them. She
18:27
Speaker 1: touched on the Emmett Till case, she touched on the
18:30
Speaker 1: Korean War, she touched on the Cold War, she touched
18:33
Speaker 1: on nuclear weapons, just a range of different things in
18:37
Speaker 1: the comics. So I wanted to just give word for
18:43
Speaker 1: word a couple of the panels that she created. So
18:47
Speaker 1: there was one nineteen fifty five, and and in it,
18:51
Speaker 1: Pattie Joe says, I don't want to seem touchy on
18:55
Speaker 1: the subject, but that new little white tea kettle just
18:59
Speaker 1: whistled at me. So um. Meanwhile, Ginger is just like
19:05
Speaker 1: looking at her, and Patty Joe's being all precocious as
19:10
Speaker 1: she does. And obviously there are all these implications that
19:14
Speaker 1: come with what Patty Joe was talking about the history
19:17
Speaker 1: of like black men and white women and like all
19:20
Speaker 1: of the things that got black men lynched, um when
19:23
Speaker 1: it came to interactions with white people. And so for
19:28
Speaker 1: Patty Joe and Jackie Arms herself to put that in
19:31
Speaker 1: a comic, and for Patty Joe to be commenting on
19:33
Speaker 1: this and framing it from a perspective risks like a
19:37
Speaker 1: little girl is saying this and she's talking about a
19:40
Speaker 1: tea kettle. But we all know what she's talking about.
19:42
Speaker 1: It's not really hidden. It's not a hidden message at all.
19:46
Speaker 1: Is very indicative of the kind of work that Worms did.
19:50
Speaker 1: Like that was pretty much how the rest of her
19:55
Speaker 1: comics went. So there is another one where Patty Joe
19:57
Speaker 1: refers to a letter that she wrote and you said,
20:00
Speaker 1: it's a letter to my congressman. I want to get
20:03
Speaker 1: it straight from Washington, just which is the American way
20:07
Speaker 1: of life New York or Georgia, And as we are
20:11
Speaker 1: in Georgia obviously relate to that one hard. And George
20:16
Speaker 1: is also heavy in the news right now too. Um so,
20:22
Speaker 1: m hyeah those are mm hmmm sure is sure is
20:31
Speaker 1: probably not the spotlight we want it, But no, I
20:34
Speaker 1: would say, definitely not. We have some more for you listeners,
20:38
Speaker 1: but first we have a quick break for a word
20:40
Speaker 1: from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor. So
20:57
Speaker 1: Patty Joe and Ginger ran for a really long time.
21:02
Speaker 1: It ran for eleven years, from forty five to nineteen
21:06
Speaker 1: fifty six. For over five hundred cartoons, so it did
21:10
Speaker 1: really well. It was written by a lot of people,
21:13
Speaker 1: and it appeared in other newspapers, and it even had
21:17
Speaker 1: a doll based on it. So in nineteen forty seven,
21:19
Speaker 1: the Terry Lead Doll Company created a doll based on
21:22
Speaker 1: Patty Joe. The doll was originally produced by the company
21:26
Speaker 1: until nineteen nine. She had a bunch of accessories and dresses.
21:31
Speaker 1: She had a huge wardrobe. The doll did and it
21:35
Speaker 1: just defied stereotypical images of black girls that counter to
21:40
Speaker 1: other dolls. And as we spoke about earlier media representations
21:45
Speaker 1: of her um, she looked just as mischievous the doll
21:49
Speaker 1: of Patty Joe did as she was actually in the cartoons.
21:53
Speaker 1: But even though the doll wasn't produced that long, you know,
21:56
Speaker 1: it didn't have some popularity, and it's like worth a
21:59
Speaker 1: lot now, like those dolls are worth a time. Gosh, yeah,
22:03
Speaker 1: they were in their outfits were nice too, mm hmmmm.
22:08
Speaker 1: So all the while she was creating all these cartoons,
22:12
Speaker 1: she was doing everything herself, so there wasn't a division
22:15
Speaker 1: of a story staff and drawers and anchors. She was
22:18
Speaker 1: doing everything, you know, and that ended up, you know,
22:22
Speaker 1: that had an effect on her physical health later in life,
22:27
Speaker 1: um as she did get rheumatory arthritis which affected how
22:31
Speaker 1: she was able to do her work. But she worked
22:34
Speaker 1: a ton and she had that same fire for creating
22:39
Speaker 1: characters like Torchy and characters like Candy, and characters like
22:44
Speaker 1: Patty Joe and Ginger. Even though Ginger was silent, she
22:48
Speaker 1: was also a very important character in it as the
22:51
Speaker 1: older sister of Patti Joe. She ended up bringing Torchi
22:55
Speaker 1: back in nineteen fifty at the request of a syndicate,
22:59
Speaker 1: and that was called Torchy and Heartbeats, and it ran
23:02
Speaker 1: for four years. And while that was more so about relationships,
23:06
Speaker 1: you know, it was about love. This time it wasn't
23:09
Speaker 1: also in color rather than in black and white. Um
23:12
Speaker 1: there were a few like content issues in the beginning
23:15
Speaker 1: because they got a guy named John Messman to write
23:18
Speaker 1: the dialogue. Obviously, Jackie was not happy with that kind
23:21
Speaker 1: of arrangement, and there's a quote where she says she
23:24
Speaker 1: never liked dreamy little women who can't hold their own.
23:28
Speaker 1: So she eventually ended up getting creative control over the
23:34
Speaker 1: strip again, and that one, just like the other one,
23:38
Speaker 1: still had political messages in it, so it had it
23:42
Speaker 1: talked about things like silence against swimming, public health, environmental
23:47
Speaker 1: issues like environmental racism, and big, big ideas and big
23:53
Speaker 1: messages in it, just like the rest of her work
23:55
Speaker 1: did um. And there were people who spoke on enjoying
23:59
Speaker 1: how much they enjoyed Torchy and enjoyed Jackie arms Is
24:03
Speaker 1: comics like Langston Hughes professed to be a fan of
24:07
Speaker 1: the Torchy comic. And as we'll talk about a little later,
24:11
Speaker 1: Jackie was she rubbed what is it rubbed elbows or shoulders?
24:15
Speaker 1: Rubbed elbows? I can't think of the idiom. Well, now
24:19
Speaker 1: it's probably quarantine times, probably rubbing elbows. I think it
24:22
Speaker 1: originally was rubbing shoulders, but you're right, I mean it is. Yeah,
24:29
Speaker 1: that's about idiom in quarantine times, We're gonna have to
24:34
Speaker 1: reinvent a lot of things, including some phrases. True. True.
24:41
Speaker 1: But the point that I was trying to make there
24:43
Speaker 1: without an appropriate idiom for this time is that she later, um,
24:47
Speaker 1: we'll get to how she did meet with a lot
24:50
Speaker 1: of people who were also in arts, like in Chicago,
24:53
Speaker 1: just because of the circles that she ran in and
24:56
Speaker 1: the kind of prestige that her husband had, because he
24:59
Speaker 1: may an itched a really nice hotel in Chicago. But yeah,
25:03
Speaker 1: she she also, like I said, a lot of her
25:05
Speaker 1: comics were inspired by the times and by like jazz
25:10
Speaker 1: singers and the arts and culture of the time. And
25:14
Speaker 1: she herself was a very fashionable person in real life.
25:18
Speaker 1: Jackie ORMs was and did a lot of things with
25:22
Speaker 1: that as well. But anyway, she also made paper dolls,
25:25
Speaker 1: which was kind of a tradition, I guess you could
25:29
Speaker 1: say at the time to go along with comics, and
25:31
Speaker 1: hers were called torchy talgs um and those are just
25:34
Speaker 1: little paper dolls that were as cute and stablish and
25:39
Speaker 1: you know, just in that went along with the torchy
25:41
Speaker 1: comic And yeah, so that's what she did for a
25:45
Speaker 1: lot of her life. She worked on several comic strips,
25:48
Speaker 1: and she did a lot of reporting, but she also
25:50
Speaker 1: did things in Chicago so that that had nothing to
25:55
Speaker 1: do with her comic strips, Like she put on fashion shows,
25:58
Speaker 1: and she had fundraisers that she went to community events, um,
26:02
Speaker 1: like appearing at career Day. And she was known in
26:06
Speaker 1: Chicago for her participation in anti racist and humanitarian organizations
26:11
Speaker 1: and movements and knowing that the times were that what
26:17
Speaker 1: they were, and we're talking about the nineteen forties and
26:19
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. She sometimes worked with members of the
26:23
Speaker 1: Communist Party. So as we often get too in these stories,
26:27
Speaker 1: we love the ever so ubiquitous FBI file. There was
26:32
Speaker 1: one on Land four around ten years. We love a
26:38
Speaker 1: good FBI file. I just love every time we did
26:41
Speaker 1: about a strong Yeah, a strong black woman. Were obviously
26:44
Speaker 1: going to call talk about the FBI being suspicious and
26:47
Speaker 1: putting up like following them and tagging them somehow. Yeah,
26:51
Speaker 1: it's sure to happen, Sure to happen. And that was
26:54
Speaker 1: the case with Jackie. UM agents interrogated her from time
26:59
Speaker 1: to time, and they reported about those interrogations. They lent
27:03
Speaker 1: her to the South Side Community Arts Center, the Artists Guild,
27:07
Speaker 1: the Cultural Club, and the Du Bois Theater Guild. UM
27:12
Speaker 1: And here's an excerpt from what one agent wrote in
27:16
Speaker 1: her file. So here's what they say it. As a
27:19
Speaker 1: result of the interview, it was apparent and interviewing agents
27:22
Speaker 1: that this subject is not very well informed or intelligent,
27:26
Speaker 1: but rather a pseudo intellectual type person, flighty and temperament
27:31
Speaker 1: and not inclined throughout the interview to seriously consider what
27:34
Speaker 1: the agents were attempting to clarify. Ah, that's so outrageous,
27:42
Speaker 1: it is, and we have to imagine that that that
27:46
Speaker 1: was their impression of her. But that was a purposeful
27:49
Speaker 1: communication of character on Jackie Ormes is part right. So
27:53
Speaker 1: I can just imagine her being there giving the face
27:56
Speaker 1: of your stupid I'm not answering these questions. And because
27:59
Speaker 1: there's a frustrated and they don't want to say they're
28:01
Speaker 1: out smarter to buy a black woman, They're like, oh,
28:03
Speaker 1: she's flighty. She definitely didn't understand what we're asking, right,
28:07
Speaker 1: that's gotta be it, right. Yeah, personal biases were definitely
28:12
Speaker 1: involved in this situation. She said in later interrogations that
28:16
Speaker 1: she wasn't a member of the Communist Party per se,
28:20
Speaker 1: but she did align with the party because it offered
28:23
Speaker 1: quote humanistic, social and economic advantages to black people, So
28:28
Speaker 1: she did over time. I wouldn't even use the phrase
28:32
Speaker 1: open up really because she didn't really give the FBI
28:34
Speaker 1: agents much, but she did, you know, say that make
28:39
Speaker 1: clear you know what her motivations were in speaking with
28:42
Speaker 1: the people that she did, because she was so active
28:45
Speaker 1: in different groups and organizations. So she um her career
28:51
Speaker 1: as a cartoonist and kind of ended in the mid
28:53
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties because a lot of things were changing that
28:56
Speaker 1: were outside of her control, even though she continued to
28:59
Speaker 1: create are There were a lot of black newspapers that
29:02
Speaker 1: were shifting focus because the civil rights movement was cropping
29:06
Speaker 1: up in just Getting Huger at the time, and a
29:09
Speaker 1: lot of those black newspapers were cutting those comics sections
29:13
Speaker 1: to make room for coverage of the civil rights movement.
29:17
Speaker 1: So that kind of failed by the wayside, which meant that,
29:20
Speaker 1: you know, there wasn't really much room for Jackie's work anymore.
29:24
Speaker 1: So she did start, you know, in fine art and painting,
29:29
Speaker 1: but her rheumatoid arthritists did affect that work as well,
29:32
Speaker 1: so she stopped that. At the same time, her husband
29:36
Speaker 1: was still managing the hotel that I alluded to earlier,
29:39
Speaker 1: which was the Sutherland Hotel in Chicago, and that was
29:44
Speaker 1: a thing that put her in touch with a lot
29:46
Speaker 1: of performers, a lot of writers, and a lot of artists,
29:51
Speaker 1: and they formed friendships with people like the singer's Lena
29:56
Speaker 1: Horn and Sara Van and she sometimes even them to
30:00
Speaker 1: perform in her fundraising shows. And yeah, so she was
30:04
Speaker 1: an active community member as well, doing a lot of
30:10
Speaker 1: things in her community that contributed to social messages in
30:15
Speaker 1: the real world even beyond you know, all of the
30:17
Speaker 1: characters that were in her comic strips, So she was
30:21
Speaker 1: kind of a person who talked to the talk through
30:24
Speaker 1: her comic strips, but also walks the walk. Yeah, for sure,
30:29
Speaker 1: we have a little bit more for you listeners, but
30:31
Speaker 1: first we have one more quick break for word from
30:32
Speaker 1: our sponsor and her back. Thank you sponsoring. So here's
30:50
Speaker 1: where we arrive at the end of Jackie ORMs is life,
30:56
Speaker 1: even though she has such a long and prolific career
30:58
Speaker 1: when it came to her our in her comics. She
31:01
Speaker 1: died in December of nineteen and there was an article
31:06
Speaker 1: in the Chicago Tribune where Jackie's sister said Jackie's philosophy
31:11
Speaker 1: of life was that you don't wait for someone to
31:13
Speaker 1: encourage you to do things. If you want to do it,
31:16
Speaker 1: then do it. She was that way since she was
31:18
Speaker 1: a little and doing sculpting, painting, writing, drawing, whatever. So
31:23
Speaker 1: even her sister attests to just how deeply she was
31:26
Speaker 1: immersed in her arts and in She was inducted into
31:31
Speaker 1: the Will Eisner Comics Hall of fame. UM And just
31:35
Speaker 1: as we spoke about earlier, just circling back around to
31:38
Speaker 1: this after speaking about her work, is that the industry
31:42
Speaker 1: was still pretty much off limits to black women. Um
31:46
Speaker 1: And from to two thousand and five there was like
31:49
Speaker 1: one nationally syndicated black woman newspaper cartoonist who was Barbara
31:54
Speaker 1: Branding Croft. So it was definitely an area where the
31:59
Speaker 1: wills returning slowly. And even though Jackie at the time
32:03
Speaker 1: didn't get a lot of shot, even though her comics
32:07
Speaker 1: were decently read, she still didn't get a ton of recognition.
32:11
Speaker 1: And over the years people have mentioned how they've been
32:17
Speaker 1: inspired by her work. People like Barbara brand and Croft
32:20
Speaker 1: have talked about how their work was influenced by Jackie
32:23
Speaker 1: ORMs is work, and just the recognition that she deserves
32:27
Speaker 1: now that we do have more information on her or
32:32
Speaker 1: that she has come back into the public light, it
32:36
Speaker 1: still wasn't a field where a lot of black women
32:39
Speaker 1: were working in even though there were white women and
32:42
Speaker 1: black men working in the field. H Yeah, and it's again,
32:50
Speaker 1: this is one of those things where I'm so thrilled
32:52
Speaker 1: you brought this to our attention because I had never
32:55
Speaker 1: heard of her. But I'm also angry that it took
32:57
Speaker 1: this long because I loved it, Like I really was
33:00
Speaker 1: reading your work and just loved it. Um. And I
33:07
Speaker 1: I think in something like comics comic strips, it's easy
33:13
Speaker 1: to dismiss them as sort of frivolous or are you know,
33:19
Speaker 1: not that serious, because that's kind of inherent in their nature.
33:23
Speaker 1: But she was making powerful statements in her work, and
33:30
Speaker 1: we can still see that continue to this day when
33:33
Speaker 1: you think of something like political cartoons. But we definitely
33:36
Speaker 1: shouldn't dismiss the power of what she was doing, right.
33:42
Speaker 1: It's just like having being able to read these comics
33:45
Speaker 1: in a newspaper, even though it's in a lighthearted format,
33:48
Speaker 1: messages that are actually serious, but also you get to
33:51
Speaker 1: laugh at um in context of the things actually happening,
33:54
Speaker 1: and also seeing and knowing that it is a black
33:57
Speaker 1: woman who's creating them. It provides some sort of you know,
34:01
Speaker 1: realness and also lightness within the dark, you know, and
34:05
Speaker 1: also calling out what that darkness is. And I just
34:09
Speaker 1: I really appreciate, you know, knowing about her work now
34:12
Speaker 1: because even though that was created for that context, that
34:15
Speaker 1: are there. I think a lot of us can agree
34:17
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of things that are still
34:19
Speaker 1: the same even if they are operating in a different
34:22
Speaker 1: way or lane that Jackie ORMs was talking about in
34:25
Speaker 1: her comics. M Yeah, absolutely, and I do think, um,
34:32
Speaker 1: it is palatable to present it in that way, to
34:34
Speaker 1: present things that perhaps people don't want to think about
34:37
Speaker 1: or talk about, to put it in something that is
34:40
Speaker 1: maybe on the surface lighthearted or is funny, but also
34:43
Speaker 1: very serious. I know for me, during all of this
34:48
Speaker 1: uh dramas that how we say we're going through, it's
34:51
Speaker 1: easiest for me to consume the news through comedy. Um. So,
34:59
Speaker 1: I just see so much value in in things like
35:02
Speaker 1: this and in the that I think as a power
35:07
Speaker 1: to facilitate conversations in a way that a lot of
35:10
Speaker 1: other things can't. Right, I agree. I meant to ask,
35:15
Speaker 1: is anybody here and artists? I have so much respects
35:18
Speaker 1: Like I cannot draw at all, and when I see
35:22
Speaker 1: people that can, I just so much respect. It's wrong.
35:26
Speaker 1: Is not my strong suit at all? Right me either? Um, Actually,
35:30
Speaker 1: I'm really bad at it. I think any you and
35:33
Speaker 1: I practice a little bit when we played the House
35:35
Speaker 1: Party game and it's it's it's bad. Yeah, but tho
35:41
Speaker 1: I drawn it was just like an oval was like
35:45
Speaker 1: this kept just I did the same thing. I just
35:47
Speaker 1: kept doing circles, and they're like, what the hell is
35:50
Speaker 1: Obviously it's it's no man or something. Obviously it's a church.
35:54
Speaker 1: I mean I did draw a lot though, for Dungeons
35:59
Speaker 1: and dragon they actually do draw quite a bit. Yeah, child,
36:05
Speaker 1: but you two are words smiths, so that that's that
36:08
Speaker 1: all right? There? Ah, thank you, I'll send I'll send
36:13
Speaker 1: my fan fiction over to you post taste. Please do
36:18
Speaker 1: You would hate it. It It would make you cry, and
36:21
Speaker 1: it used if you have any fan fiction, I would
36:23
Speaker 1: also love yours as well. Let's us all share our
36:25
Speaker 1: fan fiction. I don't. I don't have fan fiction. Unfortunately,
36:29
Speaker 1: I never I never got into fan writing fan fiction.
36:32
Speaker 1: So always get a new skill, you know, a new
36:35
Speaker 1: quarantine hobby. Yeah, yeah, I'll put fan fiction on the list.
36:42
Speaker 1: I'll think about putting fan fiction on on the list.
36:45
Speaker 1: I like this, you'll think about adding it to the list.
36:47
Speaker 1: I'll accept that. I'll accept that that was my version
36:52
Speaker 1: of commitment slash non commitment. Well, moving away reluctantly from
36:58
Speaker 1: fan fiction. Thank you so much as always for joining
37:02
Speaker 1: us such a pleasure. Can you let the listeners know
37:04
Speaker 1: where they can find you, Eves. Yeah, so you can
37:07
Speaker 1: find me on this in History Class, which is another
37:10
Speaker 1: podcast that I host, which is about events and birthdays
37:14
Speaker 1: that happened in history. Um, and you can find me
37:16
Speaker 1: on social media. I'm at Eve Jeff Code. Um. You
37:20
Speaker 1: can also find me at t D I h C
37:22
Speaker 1: podcast where the same History class. And that's about it. Yes, yes,
37:27
Speaker 1: definitely go check all that stuff out all awesome and
37:31
Speaker 1: if you would like to email us, you can. Our
37:34
Speaker 1: email is Stuff Media mom Stuff at i heeart media
37:37
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find those on Instagram at Stuff
37:39
Speaker 1: I've Never Told You or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
37:42
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our superproducer Andrew Howard, and thanks
37:46
Speaker 1: to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You. The
37:49
Speaker 1: protection of I Heart Radio for more podcasts from my
37:51
Speaker 1: Heart Radio because the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or
37:54
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Y