95 Facts About Homer Davenport

Homer Calvin Davenport was a political cartoonist and writer from the United States.

Homer Davenport is known for drawings that satirized figures of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, most notably Ohio Senator Mark Hanna.

Homer Davenport was one of the first major American breeders of Arabian horses and one of the founders of the Arabian Horse Club of America.

Homer Davenport tried a variety of jobs before gaining employment as a cartoonist, initially working at several newspapers on the West Coast, including The San Francisco Examiner, purchased by William Randolph Hearst.

McKinley was elected and Hanna elevated to the Senate; Homer Davenport continued to draw his sharp cartoons during the 1900 presidential race, though McKinley was again victorious.

In 1904, Homer Davenport was hired away from Hearst by the New York Evening Mail, a Republican paper, and there drew a favorable cartoon of President Theodore Roosevelt that boosted Roosevelt's election campaign that year.

In partnership with millionaire Peter Bradley, Homer Davenport traveled extensively amongst the Anazeh people of Syria and went through a brotherhood ceremony with the Bedouin leader who guided his travels.

The 27 horses Homer Davenport purchased and brought to the United States had a profound and lasting impact on Arabian horse breeding.

Homer Davenport was a lifelong lover of animals and of country living; he not only raised horses, but exotic poultry and other animals.

Homer Davenport died in 1912 of pneumonia, which he contracted after going to the docks of New York City to watch and chronicle the arrival of survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Homer Davenport was born March 8,1867 in the Waldo Hills, several miles south of Silverton, Oregon.

Homer Davenport's parents were Timothy Woodbridge and Florinda Willard Davenport.

The family had deep progressive roots; Homer Davenport's grandfather, Benjamin, had been a doctor and abolitionist whose home in Ohio was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Timothy Homer Davenport trained in medicine, but became a surveyor and writer later dubbed "The Sage of Silverton".

Homer Davenport had been the Indian agent for the Umatilla Agency in 1862, surveyor of Marion County in 1864, and later in his life, Oregon Land Agent.

Homer Davenport was one of the founders of the Republican Party in Oregon, served as an Oregon state representative from 1868 to 1872 and was elected a state senator in 1882.

Homer Davenport ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives on the Independent Party ticket in 1874.

Florinda Homer Davenport was an admirer of the political cartoons of Thomas Nast that appeared in Harper's Weekly.

Homer Davenport died of smallpox in 1870, when Homer was three years old, and on her deathbed asked her husband to give Homer "every opportunity" to become a cartoonist.

Young Homer Davenport was given a box of paints as a Christmas gift.

At this stage of his youth, as his father later stated, Homer Davenport had "horse on the brain".

Homer began to study music, and was allowed to help Timothy clerk at the store the elder Davenport purchased when he first moved to Silverton.

Homer Davenport exhibited an interest in animals, especially fast horses and fighting cocks.

Homer Davenport later wrote that his fascination with Arabian horses was reawakened in his adolescent years with his admiration of a picture of an Arabian-type horse found on an empty can of horse liniment.

Homer Davenport carefully cleaned the can and kept it as his "only piece of artistic furniture" for many years until forced to leave it behind when he moved to San Francisco.

Homer Davenport played in the community band in his formative years, and with that group young Davenport once traveled as far as Portland.

Homer Davenport was assigned as a clown and to care for the circus's small herd of horses, which he sketched.

Homer Davenport became disenchanted with the circus when he was told to brush the elephant's entire body with linseed oil, a difficult task.

Homer Davenport left the tour and tried to succeed as a jockey, despite being tall.

In 1889, Homer Davenport attended the Mark Hopkins School of Art in San Francisco, California, where he was expelled after a month because of his cartooning; he returned to the school for a brief time in 1892.

Homer Davenport worked for free at the Portland Evening Telegram, which published several of his drawings, but not for pay.

Homer Davenport's first paid job in journalism, in 1889, was drawing for the Portland newspaper, The Oregonian, where he showed a talent for sketching events from memory.

Homer Davenport then worked for the Portland Sunday Mercury, traveling to New Orleans for a prizefight in January 1891 between Jack Nonpareil Dempsey of Portland and Bob Fitzsimmons.

Homer Davenport was; the Examiner business manager had been greatly impressed by doodles that Davenport drew while waiting.

Homer Davenport's work, including the New Orleans postcards, had attracted admirers, who, in addition to Smith, helped him to get a job with the San Francisco Chronicle in 1892.

Homer Davenport resigned in April 1893 because he wanted to go to Chicago and see the World's Columbian Exposition, and his contacts secured him a position with the Chicago Herald.

Homer Davenport was dismissed from the Herald, and in one account ascribed his dismissal to going every day to visit and sketch the Arabian horses on exhibit at the World's Fair.

However, more likely, the poor economy and the end of the fair caused the Herald to lay him off, and Homer Davenport suggested as much in a 1905 interview.

Homer Davenport returned to San Francisco and regained his position at the Chronicle.

Homer Davenport took his responsibilities as political cartoonist seriously, traveling to Sacramento, the state capital, to observe the legislative process and its participants.

Homer Davenport was among a number of talented staff on the Examiner whom Hearst transferred to New York and employed on the Journal at a high salary.

In 1896, a presidential election year, Davenport was sent to Washington to meet and study some of the Republican Party's potential candidates, such as Speaker of the House Thomas B Reed.

Hearst's Journal was a Democratic paper, and Homer Davenport would be expected to harshly caricature the Republican presidential candidate.

Homer Davenport was teamed with Lewis and the two soon forged a solid relationship.

Homer Davenport borrowed from the animal kingdom for his creation, drawing Hanna's ears so they stuck out like a monkey's.

Homer Davenport was often accompanied by William McKinley, usually drawn as a shrunken though dignified figure dominated by the giant Hanna.

Homer Davenport's cartoons ran a few times per week in the Journal, generally on an inside page.

In London, Homer Davenport interviewed and drew the elderly former prime minister, William Gladstone.

Homer Davenport was impressed by the large muscles of the work, and immediately conceived of it as representing America's powerful corporate trusts, the status of which was then a major political issue.

In 1897, Homer Davenport was sent to Carson City, Nevada, to cover the heavyweight championship fight between boxers Bob Fitzsimmons and Jim Corbett, a match heavily promoted by the Journal.

Homer Davenport traveled to Nevada by way of Silverton, visiting there for the first time since becoming famous.

Homer Davenport both interviewed him and made several drawings which the Journal published, including one of cartoonist and boxer sparring.

Homer Davenport's drawings left few public figures unscathed; he even caricatured himself and his boss, Hearst.

Ultimately, Homer Davenport's work became so well recognized for skewering political figures he considered corrupt, that in 1897 his opponents attempted to pass a law banning political cartoons in New York.

Homer Davenport drew cartoons depicting President McKinley as cowardly and unwilling to go to war because it might harm Wall Street.

However, resentment eased after Homer Davenport depicted Dewey on his bridge during the battle, with the caption, "Lest we forget".

In 1899, Homer Davenport returned to Europe, covering the Dreyfus case in Rennes.

In 1900, the presidential election again featured McKinley defeating Bryan, and again featured Homer Davenport, reprising his depictions of Hanna, this time aided by the giant figure of the trusts.

Homer Davenport continued there until 1904, eventually earning $25,000 per year, a very large salary at the time.

Nevertheless, the Republicans wooed Homer Davenport, seeking to deprive the Democrats of one of their weapons, and eventually President and cartoonist met.

In 1904, Homer Davenport left the American for the New York Evening Mail, a Republican paper, to be paid $25,000 for the final six months of 1904 and an undisclosed salary after that.

Again Homer Davenport affected the campaign, this time with a cartoon of Uncle Sam with his hand on Roosevelt's shoulder, "He's good enough for me".

Homer Davenport began to devote large periods to other activities; in 1905, he spent months in his home state of Oregon, first visiting Silverton and then showing, at Portland's Lewis and Clark Exposition, the animals he bred.

Homer Davenport sometimes appeared on the same program as Bryan, though on different days, and like him drew thousands of listeners.

Homer Davenport authored an autobiographical book, The Diary of a Country Boy, in 1910, and collections of his cartoons, including The Dollar or the Man and Cartoons by Homer Davenport.

Apparently as a joke, Homer Davenport once included The Belle of Silverton and Other Oregon Stories in a list of his publications, and reference books for years listed it among his works.

Homer Davenport's marriage had failed by 1909, and he suffered a breakdown that year, related to his ongoing divorce case.

Homer Davenport was on assignment for the American on April 19,1912, when he met the RMS Carpathia at the docks in New York to draw the survivors of the RMS Titanic.

Homer Davenport drew three cartoons, but upon leaving his office was in a "highly nervous state".

Homer Davenport's funeral was a freethought service conducted by a spiritualist, Jean Morris Ellis.

Addison Bennett of The Oregonian wrote, "Yes, Homer Davenport has come home for the last time, home to wander again never".

Homer Davenport bought some Arabian horses outright between 1898 and 1905, paying $8,500 for one stallion, but he later partnered with Bradley in the horse business.

Homer Davenport traveled throughout what today is Syria and Lebanon, and successfully brought 27 horses to America.

In December 1905, Homer Davenport approached President Roosevelt for help, and in January 1906, Roosevelt provided him a letter of support that he was able to present to the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Chikeb Bey, who contacted the Sultan.

Homer Davenport displayed his artistic ability and talent for detail by sketching several portraits of Abdul Hamid II from memory about a half-hour after observing him, as Davenport believed the ruler unwilling to have his image drawn.

Haffez considered the timing of Homer Davenport's visit a great honor, and gave Homer Davenport his finest mare, a war mare named *Wadduda.

Homer Davenport chronicled this journey in his 1908 book, My Quest of the Arabian Horse.

The impact of the 17 stallions and 10 mares purchased by Homer Davenport was of major importance to the Arabian horse breed in America.

In 1908, Homer Davenport became one of the five incorporators of the Arabian Horse Club of America.

Homer Davenport had meticulously sought horses with pure bloodlines and known breeding strains with the expert assistance of Haffez, but once out of the desert, he was not aware that he needed to obtain written affidavits and other paperwork to document their bloodlines.

In 1907, Homer Davenport entered the stallion into the Justin Morgan Cup, a horse show competition he won, defeating 19 Morgan horses.

Homer Davenport had the stallion's skull and partial skeleton prepared and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where it became part of the museum's research collection.

Homer Davenport purchased horses from the Crabbet Park Stud in England, notably the stallion *Abu Zeyd, considered the best son of his famous sire, Mesaoud.

Homer Davenport married Daisy Moor of San Francisco on September 7,1893; she had traveled to Chicago while the artist was working there.

Homer Davenport kept many of the animals he collected and bred, including pheasants and horses, at East Orange, but decided to move both animals and himself to Morris Plains, and take the rail line dubbed the "Millionaire's Special" to work in New York.

Homer Davenport moved away from East Orange in 1906, though he still owned the house as late as 1909.

Homer Davenport taught Duff to do tricks and profited by loaning the dog to perform in vaudeville acts.

In 1908, Homer Davenport involved himself in a controversy over the breeding of show-quality dogs, stating that he thought breeding solely for show purposes was creating an animal that was of inferior quality.

Homer Davenport targeted certain popular breeders of purebred collies as producing animals that had less intelligence, were of poor temperament, and lacked utility.

Homer Davenport pointedly named famous breeders whom he felt were making particularly poor decisions.

The Homer Davenport marriage did not last; Daisy did not share many of her husband's interests and intensely disliked Silverton.

Homer Davenport initially returned to New York to live, but soon suffered a breakdown; he spent months recuperating in a resort hotel in San Diego, California, at the expense of his friend, sporting goods mogul Albert Spalding.

Homer Davenport returned to New York and obtained a new stock farm at Holmdel, New Jersey, in 1910.

Homer Davenport met a new companion, referred to in his papers only as "Zadah", whom he intended to marry once his divorce case was concluded.

Homer Davenport's cartoons have had a lasting impact on the public image of Mark Hanna, both on how he was perceived at the time and on how he is remembered today.