In the late 1800s, comic strips exploded in popularity in American newspapers with the onset of the circulation war between Joseph Pulitzer’s “New York World” and William Randolph Heart’s “New York Journal.” Comic artists such as Robert Outcault moved between the two papers, which often resulted in legal battles over comic strip names and characters. Over the next two decades, comic strips such as “Hogan’s Alley”, “Katzenjammer Kids”, “Newlyweds”, and “Mutt and Jeff” became wildly popular to American audiences. Read more about it!

The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.

The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.