11 Facts About Edwina Dumm

Frances Edwina Dumm was a writer-artist who drew the comic strip Cap Stubbs and Tippie for nearly five decades; she is notable as America's first full-time female editorial cartoonist.

Edwina Dumm used her middle name for the signature on her comic strip, signed simply Edwina.

One of the earliest female syndicated cartoonists, Dumm was born in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and lived in Marion and Washington Courthouse, Ohio throughout her youth before the family settled down in Columbus.

Anna Gilmore Dennis was her mother, and her father, Frank Edwin Edwina Dumm, was a playwright-actor who later worked as a newspaper reporter.

In 1915, Edwina Dumm was hired by the short-lived Republican newspaper, the Columbus Monitor, to be a full-time cartoonist.

Edwina Dumm drew editorial cartoons for the Monitor from its first edition until the paper folded.

Edwina Dumm was hired by the George Matthew Adams Service to create Cap Stubbs and Tippie, a family strip following the lives of a boy Cap, his dog Tippie, their family, and neighbors.

Edwina Dumm worked very fast; according to comics historian Martin Sheridan, she could pencil a daily strip in an hour.

Edwina Dumm illustrated Alexander Woollcott's Two Gentlemen and a Lady.

Edwina Dumm continued to write and draw Tippie until her 1966 retirement.

Edwina Dumm was a recipient of the National Cartoonists Society Gold Key Award in 1978, and remained the only woman to win this award until 2013.