Introduction
"You’ve got to be a misanthrope in this
business. ... I’m touchy. I’ve got raw nerve ends, and
I’ll jump. If I see a stuffed shirt, I want to punch it."
- Bill Mauldin
William Henry Mauldin (1921-2003),
better known to the world as Bill Mauldin, was one of the most popular
and influential cartoonists of the twentieth century. He passed
away on January 22, 2003 after a long career dedicated to caricature
and cartoon. This online presentation celebrates his life and features
a selection of original cartoons spanning the artist's remarkable
career and draws exclusively from the collections of the Prints
and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. In 1975, Bill
Mauldin gave his papers and 1,700 original cartoon drawings dating
from 1938 to 1965 to the Library of Congress, a generous gift to
the American people from a man who had touched the hearts and souls
of a generation of enlisted men during World War II. He later shaped
the minds of thousands in his political cartoons. He won two Pulitzer
Prizes in Editorial Cartooning for his work: the first for his work
in Stars and Stripes in 1945 at the age of 23, and the second in
1959 for a cartoon published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
All objects in this tribute have been selected from the 1975 gift
of Bill Mauldin, unless otherwise stated. All of the objects are
housed in the Prints
and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.

“I won the Nobel Prize
for literature. What was your crime?”, October 30,
1958
Ink, crayon, and white out over pencil
Published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 30, 1958
LC-USZ62-116324 (b&w film copy neg.)
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03231 (digital file from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 514 (B size)
Copyright 1958 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin.
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Bill Mauldin castigated the Soviet Union for
not permitting Boris Pasternak to travel to accept his Nobel
Prize. With this cartoon, Mauldin won his second Pulitzer
Prize. |
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