Dowling, Dan, 1906-1993

Dan Dowling (1906-1993) was an American editorial cartoonist who worked for the Omaha World Herald, the New York Herald Tribune and the Kansas City Star .

Born in O'Neill, Nebraska on November 16, 1906, Dan Dowling spent his childhood in Iowa. Dowling was influenced by the cartoons of Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling that appeared in the Des Moines Register and Leader and Carey Orr. Dowling attended the University of California-Berkeley from 1924 until 1928. Wanting to travel, Dowling joined a dance band and as the drummer got to travel the world. In 1931 he moved to Chicago where he briefly studied at the Academy of Fine Art before working as a police reporter.

In 1933 Dowling joined the Associated Press in New York as a retouch artist. Learning of an opening with the Omaha World Herald, Dowling moved back to the Midwest in 1937 to become the paper's cartoonist not having had any on the job cartooning experience. Dowling stayed in Omaha until World War II when he joined the infantry and served four years as a captain.

During the war, he submitted cartoons to the Omaha World Herald and the New York Herald Tribune . Dowling landed a job with the latter after the war and his editorial cartoons became syndicated in 1949. Dowling stayed at the New York Herald Tribune until the paper went out of business upon which he became the editorial cartoonist for the Kansas City Star where he stayed until his retirement.

Dowling won two Freedom Foundation Awards (1956 and 1960), a Christopher Award in 1960, a Sigma Chi Delta award (1960) and served as founding president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists from 1956 to 1958.

Dan Dowling retired to Carmel by the Sea, California and died of congestive heart failure on July 27, 1993.

From the guide to the Dan Dowling Cartoons, 1956-1966, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)