Berryman and Gibson Cartoons

"Let's bring your temperature down!"

On the occasion of the library's bicentennial Malcolm C. McCormack, formerly the Vice-President for University Relations at Georgetown and a longtime Library Associates Trustee, presented a remarkable collection of original political cartoons, consisting of 15 drawings by Jim Berryman and 14 by Gibson Crockett, both cartoonists for the old Washington Evening Star. Berryman (1902-1971), who first started as a sports cartoonist, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for his political cartoon, "All Set for a Super-Secret Session in Washington." These 29 cartoons were published in 1959 in the Washington Evening Star and depict the many political concerns of that turbulent year: Krushchev and missiles; Russian spy satellites; Fidel Castro; Red China and production quotas; Dwight Eisenhower and the Cold War; and Harold Macmillan and summit talks, among others.

A related bicentennial gift, donated by Miss Mannevillete Sullivan of Washington, D.C., is a humorous cartoon portrait of her kinsman, the Georgetown alumnus and Washington attorney, Joseph D. Sullivan. The sketch is by Clifford Berryman, the creator of the "Teddy bear," who was the father of Jim Berryman and himself a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. The library has numerous drawings by the elder Berryman, many of them found in the papers of George H. O'Connor.