How the Other Half Laughs: The Comic Sensibility in American Culture, 1895-1920

203 Pages·2020·89.342 MB·English

by  Jean Lee Cole

How the Other Half Laughs

HOW THE OTHER HALF
LAUGHS
the comic sensibility in american culture, 1895−1920
jean lee cole
university press of mississippi / jackson
The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of
the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University,
Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University,
Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University,
University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of University Presses.
Copyright © 2020 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2020
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
LCCN 2019034310
ISBN 9781496826527 (hardback)
ISBN 9781496826534 (trade paperback)
ISBN 9781496826541 (epub single)
ISBN 9781496826558 (epub institutional)
ISBN 9781496826565 (pdf single)
ISBN 9781496826572 (pdf institutional)
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
To my family

Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
introduction
The Comic Sensibility
3
chapter one
The Comic Grotesque
29
chapter two
Rising from the Gutter
67
chapter three
Illustration and the Narrative Quality of Appeal
93
chapter four
The Black Comic Sensibility
119
viii Contents
Coda
149
Notes
159
Works Consulted
177
Index
189
Acknowledgments
This book was a long time coming and has been pushed along with the help
of many people. I will acknowledge a few of them here.
My colleagues in the Department of English at Loyola University Maryland
have supported this project in myriad ways. Brian Norman and Mark Osteen
have given me persistent encouragement and guidance over the years and also
provided much-appreciated opportunities to share my work with colleagues in
and out of the department. Nick Miller and I discovered our common interest
in visual culture on different sides of the Atlantic; his thorough reading and
erudite comments on several key chapters, as well as his role as “accountability
buddy” over several summers and a sabbatical research leave, helped me stay
on course. I hope I have helped him do the same. And Melissa Girard is a
wonderfully generous interlocutor, with or without a glass of wine.
Other Loyola colleagues, especially Kerry Boeye and Matthew Mulcahy,
alerted me to sources and scholarship in other disciplines. Participants in
Loyola Faculty Writing Retreats have been congenial and intelligent sounding
boards throughout the life of this project. Richard Blum provided transla-
tion help when I needed it. The Department of Academic Affairs materially
supported this project with several Summer Research Grants and a Dean’s
Supplemental Grant, and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs pro-
vided funds for a last-minute research trip to the William Glackens Collection
at Nova Southeastern Museum of Art. I shall be eternally grateful for the cheer-
ful, prompt assistance of Nicholas Triggs and Zachary Gahs-Bucchieri in the
interlibrary loan department at the Loyola-Notre Dame Library; their ability
to track down incomplete references and obscure publications on microfilm,
in digital archives, and in local libraries amazed me over and over again. And
ix