Remembering Irvin Dugan

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Dugan’s newspaper cartoons championed construction of a number of important projects,
including the city’s floodwall, Tri-State Airport and Cabell Huntington Hospital.
He frequently cartooned about his own pet project, an underpass
at the railroad tracks at 23rd Street, but it was never built.
Courtesy of Special Collections Marshall University.

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HUNTINGTON — The face of the artist may not be familiar, but many long-time
Huntington newspaper readers will recognize his cartoon creation.
The cartoons of Irvin Dugan (1892-1982) enlivened the pages
of Huntington’s papers for 30 years, from
the late 1920s through the 1950s.

Virtually all of Dugan’s editorial-page cartoons featured his alter ego,
 a little old man named Adam Goodfellow, easily recognizable
by his flowing mustache, glasses, corncob pipe and hat.
 Dugan said he named his creation Adam because,
 like Adam in Shakespeare’s “As You like It,”
Adam Goodfellow was “short of
 stature and long on wisdom.”

Dugan created Adam in World War II to promote the sale
 of war bonds. In his first appearance, he was shown with
 a dinner pail under his arm and a newly purchased war
 bond in his hand. The caption read, ‘‘Here’s mine.
 Where’s yours?’’ The U.S. Treasury
Department distributed the
cartoon nationwide.

Many famous individuals, including coal mine labor leader John L. Lewis,
Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, wrote Dugan
asking for originals of his cartoons. In 1974, Dugan donated
a collection of such letters and 500 Adam originals
to the Marshall University Library.
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Note:  This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Dec. 14, 2021

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