Valley cartoonist is Google Doodle

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

The first African-American female cartoonist, Jackie Ormes, grew up in Monongahela and was featured Tuesday as the subject of the Google Doodle.

A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google’s home page intended to commemorate holidays, events and notable historical figures.

Ormes was born in Pittsburgh in 1911 and relocated with her mother, sister and new stepfather to Monongahela, where she graduated from high school in 1930.

Her earliest published works appeared in the Monongahela High School yearbook as caricatures of her fellow students and some teachers.

Ormes was known for her satirical and stylish cartoons and comic strips that challenged the derogatory portrayals of Black female characters prevalent in the media, according to Google’s release promoting the doodle.

Ormes’ first comic strip, “Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem,” appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier in 1937. She moved to Chicago about five years later and continued working in newspapers. Eventually, her work returned to the Courier with a cartoon called “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger,” that ran from 1945 to 1956. 

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