Robert Minor

Robert Minor (1884 - 1952) was cartoonist and a leading member of the American Communist Party.

Career as a Cartoonist

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Minor had to leave school at the age of fourteen because his father was unemployed. In 1904, at the age of twenty, Robert Minor was hired as an assistant stereotypist and handyman at the "San Antonio Gazette" and he soon started to get his cartoons and these were published in the newspaper.

Minor moved to St. Louis and where he worked as a cartoonist for the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch". He soon became the chief cartoonist at the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" and was considered by many to be the best in the country. In 1907 Minor joined the Socialist Party of America, and most of his cartoons were very political, and as a supporter of woman suffrage, Minor contributed to feminist journals such as the "Woman's Journal" and "Woman Voter".

Minor was one of the first American cartoonists to employ grease crayon on paper. In 1911, Robert Minor was hired by the "New York World" and he became the highest paid cartoonist in the United States.

Becoming a Communist

Robert Minor was totally opposed to the First World War, and at first his anti-war cartoons caused no problems. However, when the United States joined into the war, Minor was ordered by the editor of the mainstream newspapers for which he drew to stop drawing anti-war cartoons. Minor had been contributing cartoons to the radical journal, "The Masses". One of his drawings for "The Masses", titled "Army Medical Examine: At Last! A Perfect Soldier," depicted a large muscular and headless man. This cartoon was one of a number of images and articles used by the government to sue the "Masses" for violation of the 1917 U.S. Sedition Act, which eventually led to the demise of the magazine.

Robert Minor was jailed for his anti-war propaganda, but he was never convicted in a trial, and in January 1919, Minor was released from prison as the war was over. His cell mate in jail was Al Capone's childhood friend, Dan Lockney, with whom Minor formed a lasting relationship.

Minor found work as a journalist with the "New York Call". He was sent to Europe became a witness to the German Revolution in 1919. While in Germany, Minor was arrested and charged with spreading treasonous propaganda among British and American troops.

When Robert Minor returned to America, he joined the American Communist Party. He worked as a cartoonist and writer for "The Liberator" and in 1924 he helped establish the "Daily Worker".

On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Robert Minor went to Spain and helped to organize the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, a unit of international volunteered that helped the Spanish Popular Front government in the battle against General Franco and the fascists. Minor was also the American representative to the Comintern in Spain.

Last Years

Back in the US, Robert Minor lived in the south where he campaigned for Black Civil Rights and wrote several articles exposing the involvement of local white politicians in lynching.

Minor suffered a heart attack in 1948 and was bedridden during the time of McCarthyism when his fellow leaders of the American Communist Party were arrested and imprisoned. He died in 1952.