LUNCH WITH BOOKS LIVESTREAM: Wheeling Presents: Lesser Known Legends of Wheeling - Cy Hungerford

May 25, 2021
12:00pm - 1:00pm

For the next installment of Archiving Wheeling Presents: Lesser Known Legends of Wheeling, historian Terri Blanchette will talk about cartoonist Cy Hungerford who worked for the Wheeling Newspapers before becoming famous in Pittsburgh. 

Though Cyrus Cotton Hungerford was born in Manilla, Indiana, his family soon moved to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It was there that Hungerford taught himself to draw by making copies of the cartoons he found in local newspapers and his own first cartoon was published in the Parkersburg Sentinel, Sept. 21, 1903, when young Cy was still a teenager.  

Hungerford moved to Wheeling, W.Va. in 1908, where he worked as a cartoonist and reporter for the Wheeling Register. Four years later, Hungerford arrived in Pittsburgh as an editorial cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Sun, and when the Post-Gazette absorbed the Sun in 1927, he was part of the package deal.

From 1912 until 1977, Hungerford was among the country’s most famous cartoonists. His cartoons were so popular in Pittsburgh that they ran on the front page for much of his early career. Even more notable than their placement was Hungerford’s editorial freedom. In West Virginia, his bosses had often dictated what he drew. But in Pittsburgh, Hungerford was granted complete creative control, which few in the industry enjoyed.

This program will be available to watch live on Facebook Live, on YouTube, and on the OCPL website's LWB Livestream page.  Log into your Facebook or YouTube account during the program to leave questions for Terri in the comments box. She will answer them during the live broadcast. 

PRESENTER BIO: After working for a number of years in the museum field, with a decade of experience working with collections in the museum and library fields, Terri Blanchette realized that there is a lot of great history in informal family and business collections at risk of disappearing due to improper care. So in 2015, she founded TimeSorters, LLC which provides museum-quality preservation services and trains individuals on how to best store their personal treasures. Terri received her M.A. in U.S. History and Museum Studies from Duquesne University and is a member of NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers), American Association for State and Local History, American Alliance of Museum, Virginia Conservation Association (Board Member), and the American Association of Senior Move Managers. She was written a book about Cyrus “Cy” Hungerford, 1888-1983, the longest published editorial cartoonist of all time.

ABOUT ARCHIVING WHEELING:

Archiving Wheeling is an online community designed to showcase the local and regional history collections of the Ohio County Public Library and its heritage partners. Contributor posts feature stories and images about the contents of each partner’s archival and special collections, highlighting historic photographs, postcards and other images, books, journals, letters, maps, prints, pamphlets, brochures, advertising ephemera and the like that are related to the history of Wheeling or the Upper Ohio Valley region.

The mission of Archiving Wheeling is to virtually connect these collections, providing a web-based community archive to facilitate access, by researchers and the general public, to materials that document the rich history of our region. It is hoped that greater public awareness of what is available will encourage people to consider donating important archival materials to the appropriate local organizations so that these historically significant materials can be properly preserved, housed, and accessed locally, where they originated and where they belong.

Visit Archiving Wheeling at http://www.archivingwheeling.org/.

Lunch With Books Livestream starts at noon on Facebook and YouTube.

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"Lunch With Books" is the library’s flagship program for adult patrons. These lunchtime programs feature authors, poets, musicians, historians, and more every Tuesday at noon. Bring lunch (to your computer), feed your brain!