Elmer S. Campbell, the first published Black cartoonist.

Elmer S.
Campbell

Elmer Simms Campbell was born on this date in 1906. He was the first African-American cartoonist to publish his work in general-circulation magazines on a regular basis.

Campbell was born in St. Louis, and while still attending high school, he won a nationwide contest in cartooning. He later studied at the University of Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. He then worked as a railroad dining-car waiter, amusing himself by drawing caricatures of the passenger. One of them was so impressed with his work, hed gave him a job in a commercial-art studio in St. Louis.

Campbell later moved to New York City, where he worked for an advertising agency while gradually infusing himself as a regular contributor to various humor magazines.

In 1933, the magazine Esquire was established, and Campbell became its foremost cartoonist, with as many as a dozen drawings in an issue. His work was also published in Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, and Playboy.

He is best known for his representations of voluptuous women, frequently in a harem setting.

He died Jan. 27, 1971 in White Plains, New York.

Reference:
The Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage
by Susan Altman
Copyright 1997, Facts on File, Inc. New York
ISBN 0-8160-3289-0