Cartoons for the Cause? Walter Crane'sThe Anarchists of Chicago

Abstract

This essay explores how and why the English socialist artist and Arts and Crafts designer Walter Crane came to produce an icon of anarchist martyrdom, his cartoon entitled The Anarchists of Chicago, from 1894. In doing so it situates the ‘Haymarket Affair’ of 1886 as a crucial moment in the interplay between socialists and anarchists, one that would have a profound effect on Crane's view of the interrelation of art and politics. The Anarchists of Chicago can be considered a means of political expression rather than an end. In his artistic response to the ‘martyrdom’ of the Chicago anarchists, Crane struggled to assimilate anarchist politics with his socialist art. In this regard, the only cartoon to declare his sympathy with anarchism actually marks the limits of his engagement with anarchism as a viable political philosophy.