A young, tousled-haired boy about the age of seven is slumbering away in his bed, ensconced in a non-descript, middle class bedroom (fig. 1). He is jarred awake by the revelation that his bed is levitating, and slowly floating out his window and into space. So begins an episode of Winsor McCay's epic comic strip adventure, Little Nemo in Slumberland, which appeared in newspapers across the country between 1905 and 1914. Featured on the cover of the New York Herald's Sunday comic supplement (and syndicated nationwide), the comic presented the bedtime adventures of a small boy called Nemo. In the serial's debut, and in the weeks to follow, Nemo repeatedly attempted to reach the enchanted kingdom of Slumberland, only to have the journey preempted when he awakened and found himself safely at home in his bed. It was an ideal subject for a weekly comic in that the curtailed narrative induced readers to purchase the next installment. Such literature also taught its young readers an appreciation for the pleasures of both fantasy and delayed gratification.

A visit to an exotic world followed by a return to reality was a common trope in children's magazines and books, as evidenced by the widespread popularity of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz, and J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. The cultural preoccupation with fantastic subjects did not go unnoticed. The writer Brian Hooker wrote in the October 1908 edition of Forum, "The present day is exhibiting a curiously vivid interest in fairy tales," and later pondered, "perhaps our very materialism is responsible for this new hunger after fancy." By the first decade of the 20th century images celebrating wonder and fantasy appeared in everything from picture books and comic strips, to department stores and amusement parks.

Little Nemo's bold visual style and epic story arc distinguished the comic from its competitors. Its ambitions included broadening the audience for comic strips by self-consciously referencing pictorial forms from an expansive range of high and low cultural sources. McCay's comic strips redefined the nascent medium and made an important contribution to the proliferation of fantastic imagery at the dawn of the 20th century. To best understand his cultural contributions it is useful to examine his aesthetic innovations, as well as the social and historical context in which his work found its audience.

Visual Analysis

McCay's work was characterized by its vivid use of color, skillful draftsmanship, intricate detail, and imaginative architectural forms. In this episode dated December 3, 1905, we can see how McCay expanded the narrative possibilities of the comic strip through his embrace of full-page design. Here he creates visual interest and momentum by varying the size and shape of the panels, culminating in the central circular panel, while unifying the entire page through symmetry and repetition. His graceful line work and use of flat areas of color are reminiscent of art nouveau poster art. It is also important to recognize that his fantastic imagery is rooted in the spectacular world of commerce and popular entertainment that ushered in the 20th century. For example, the emphasis on primary colors and the typographical flourishes found in the title panel are reminiscent of circus poster art. The comic's narrative, an imagined trip to the moon, was also the subject of an amusement park ride at Coney Island, a serialized novel published in St. Nicholas, and a 1902 film by Georges Méliès. McCay's comic strips produced a dream world shaped by the visual language of modern urban experience.

As the students read the comic strip, ask them to think about how words and images are combined to create the narrative. Talk about the essential components of a comic strip: the header/title, the panels, the gutters (the space between the panels), and the captions and/or speech balloons. How do these components divide time and space? How do the elements combine to advance plotlines? What is more instrumental to the flow of this narrative, the words or the pictures? Do either contradict or work against one another? How do text and image compliment, or complicate, the story? How are the different visual elements combined to create a unified, full-page design? Why does McCay vary the size and shape of the panels? How does this affect the flow of time within the comic strip? Emphasize scale, which will not be apparent from viewing the image online. Bring in a copy of the New York Times as a visual aid and explain that one Little Nemo comic strip took up the full page of a broadsheet newspaper (about 16 x 22 inches), as compared to newspaper comic strips today, which are compressed in size so as to fit as much content onto the page as possible. How does the size of the image affect the reading experience? The large scale of McCay's fantastical designs contributed to their transportive quality, as children could immerse themselves in scenes of faraway lands and magic kingdoms.

Historical Context

Weekly funny pages, directed at both children and adults, first appeared in newspapers in the 1890s, when the publishing barons Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst vigorously competed with each other for readers. They soon discovered that the colorful comic supplements boosted circulation. The initial audiences for comics were urban, working class immigrants and the content of the newspapers reflected their readership. R. F. Outcault's The Yellow Kid and Rudolph Dirks' The Katzenjammer Kids drew inspiration from the various ethnic communities who populated the tenements of the lower east side. Common elements of such comics include urban settings, crowded frames, and the use of anti-authoritarian, anarchic humor similar to that found in the slapstick comedy of vaudeville routines, with an emphasis on the child as a trickster figure.

As newspapers became nationally syndicated the content of the comics became less urban and culturally specific so as to appeal to a wider audience. By 1903 comics transitioned from being an urban phenomenon to a national craze. Little Nemo attempted to bridge the gap between the serialized adventure stories found in high-brow illustrated magazines like St. Nicholas, and the low brow humor of the Sunday supplements. This was undoubtedly a strategic move on the part of McCay's employer, James Gordon Bennett Jr., who wished to distinguish the New York Herald as a middle-class alternative to its more sensational counterparts like Pulitzer's New York World and Hearst's New York Journal.

Images glorifying childhood as period of unfettered creativity dominated the visual landscape of early 20th-century American fiction, magazines, and comics. Concurrent with the rapid expansion of mass culture, these dreamscapes directed viewers to revel in fantasy and delight in ungratified longing, thereby inciting the pleasures of consumer desire in its audience of young dreamers. This contributed to a shared visual culture that celebrated fantasy and the imagination. For McCay, Slumberland was a retreat from modernity; yet his spectacular landscapes were peppered with allusions to popular culture. References to circus posters, Coney Island thrill rides, and show window displays abound in his designs. McCay's use of the medium was highly self-reflexive and ambivalent: his work articulated the complex ways in which fantasy and mass culture were entangled at the turn-of-the-century.

Teaching the Source

This striking image is a potential jumping off point for further discussion of the rapid rise of a mass popular culture in American cities in the early 20th century. In my art history course, after dividing into groups to talk about how the visual design and narrative work together, I will ask students to research and write a short report on another example of 20th century visual culture that explores some of the same themes. Examples can take the form of children's literature, early film, amusement parks, poster art, advertising, or illustration. Students present short papers on any number of topics, including L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Georges Méliès' film A Trip to the Moon, the architecture of Coney Island's Luna Park and Dreamland, Barnum & Bailey circus posters, and the commercial illustrations of Maxfield Parrish. Students found commonalities in themes, visual motifs, and subject matter, pointing to the many ways that popular art forms intersected and influenced one another at the dawn of mass culture.

The Picture Archive of The Illustrated London News (ILN) is most readily accessed through the website of the Mary Evans Picture Library. In principle, the Archive still has its own website, but in practice it is likely to prove inaccessible. Since 2007, following a change of ownership of the ILN Publishing Group, the archive has been housed at Mary Evans. This transfer is unfortunate in some respects, since Mary Evans is a commercial rather than an educational organization and it charges fees to download images. The original site also had extensive background material on the history and printing processes of the ILN that does not appear in the new setting. Nonetheless, one can browse the watermarked images of the Mary Evans Picture Library for research purposes – and its ILN section now has more material than the original site, as new pictures are scanned into it. And of course one can always move from the ILN to scan the whole Mary Evans collection.

The story goes that Herbert Ingram, who founded the ILN in 1842, noticed as a newsagent in Nottingham that when newspapers included pictures, their sales increased. Most journals at this point were still grudging in their resort to illustrations, so when Ingram moved to London and founded a paper committed to lavish use of images, he was immediately successful.

Pictures of dramatic events such as the 1848 Revolution in France and the Crimean War (1853-6) helped its reputation for exciting journalism. By the 1860s, the ILN was selling 300,000 copies per week, far outstripping the circulation of conventional newspapers. To begin with Ingram printed only black-and-white wood engravings, but the ILN later made use of color, and, especially from the 1920s, photographs. Ingram also started a policy of hiring famous illustrators and top writers, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Conan Doyle. The archive has pictures from issues running from 1842 to 1971, including those from other journals in the "Great Eight" that came together in the 1920s, the best known apart from the ILN being The Tatler.

The search facility allows users to opt for ILN images only. Each of the 10,000 or so in the archive is well referenced with a number, date, description and further details. Searching under children brings up an eclectic collection of 282 images. Some only incidentally concern this heading, for example when King George V appears because there is a mention in the text to his six children.

Others are on the whimsical side: "Caught!" (ref. 10216446) shows children discovered by their parents in the larder scoffing jam from a huge jar. The text informs us that "sentimental or humorous scenes such as these were a popular addition to the ILN, especially over the Christmas period."

The royal families of Europe feature prominently as well as novelties, such as "Children being treated with ultra-violet light" (ref . 10216701). However Ingram, a Liberal MP, had some sympathy with the poor. Hence there are little clusters of pictures depicting children during such events as the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, the United States Civil War, and Jewish migration to London during the 1900s. "Children searching for potatoes" during the Irish famine (ref. 10220183), for example, conveys the desperation of their situation effectively.

More cheerful images from everyday life include "Audience of Children at a London Music Hall, 1882" (ref. 102216500) and "Children at the Circus, 1948," (ref. 10219941). There are also pictures of school strikes, somehow always with a portly-looking policeman in attendance (e.g. from 1889, demanding "shorter hours" and "no cane," (ref. 10219381), a Montessori school (ref. 10215457) and London youth clubs during the 1880s (e.g. 10220713).

In sum, the archive has a variety of delights for the historian of childhood, and a well-organized website, though no great depth of coverage or supporting material.

Morning Sun is a companion website for a documentary film of the same name about the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in China (1964-1976). The film is only available through the Center for Asian American Media, either to rent or for purchase (it is cost prohibitive for individuals). The documentary film was created by the Long Bow Group, who also created "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," a film and website about the 1989 events in Tiananmen Square.

Unlike the companion site for "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," Morning Sun does not contain any segments from the film, which is a major drawback of this site. If the documentary film is unavailable (as it is to this reviewer), then the site should be able to stand alone, however this is not entirely the case. The site has a wealth of primary and secondary sources, as well as video and audio clips created by the Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution. The site does not express a narrative of the Cultural Revolution; rather it presents the resources created, and leaves analysis and interpretation up to the viewer.

The site, which relies heavily on the use of Java, Shockwave Flash, and Quicktime, is divided into five major sections, each with its own topic. Living Revolution includes very brief clips from radio and television shows, readings, and even lessons taught to school children. The English Lesson is particularly interesting, giving the students an opportunity to study English and learn about racial inequality in the United States at the same time. Direct translations of what is said in the clips is available, but there is no context to help viewers understand the placement of the scene within the larger film, or its overall plot or purpose.

Smash the Old World contains writings about the Red Guard and the destruction of the "Four Olds" ("Old ideas, old culture, old customs, old habits"), including "reviews" of older revolutionary films written by Jiang Qing (Mao's wife). These reviews condemn the revolutionary attitudes and attempt to steer the reader toward a more acceptable form of behavior and attitude.

Reddest Red Sun and Stages of History are dedicated to the architects of the Cultural Revolution: Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Jiang Qing, and Lin Biao. Reddest Red Sun tackles the cult of Mao, although again, with little in the way of explanation or analysis. There is a video showing how Mao was able to "cure" deaf-mute children (those who had been abandoned by the Nationalist Party as incurable), using ordinary People's Liberation Army soldiers, Chairman Mao's words, and acupuncture. A note at the bottom of the page of this section indicates that the section is incomplete (there are no discernable dates on the site; however the documentary itself was made in 2003).

Stages of History shows how the Communist Party used place, drama and other media to create official histories of the new, revolutionary China. There is a virtual tour of Tiananmen Square as well as photographic essays on Liu Shaoqi, Jiang Qing, and Lin Biao. Of great interest is the section on Mao's Little Red Book. This includes a pamphlet published by the Communist Party with questions such as "What to do when you hear reactionary statements" and "What to do when you encounter arduous and hard work," all of which can be answered by quotations from Chairman Mao.

The site would be of greatest use to teachers as a supplement to a unit on the Cultural Revolution. The site gives the teacher access to amazing video, audio, and readings showing the lengths to which the Communist Party went in order to keep up revolutionary fervor during this time period. However, students will find the content of the site bewildering if they are not given either a narrative or an analytical guide.

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One of the most important subjects in educating your child is "books and reading." Children should have a target of learning how to read and write, they should not want to be led, but rather promote themselves to the level of a guide. To know why you read is as important as reading itself.

Let us think about the following questions: "What is knowledge? What is the purpose of knowledge? Why do people read books? What is the target that we desire to reach by reading and understanding something?"

If a person learns the complex and confusing rules and principles of mathematics, but ignores their practical applications or never thinks of improving their knowledge with theories and hypotheses then they cannot be considered as having realized their goal.

Likewise, if we learn all the basic principles of medicine, but do not put this knowledge to use, not even examining a single patient, it is doubtful whether we will be able to keep up our knowledge, not to mention the fact that we have wasted our knowledge.

In short, knowledge in which we do not find anything that relates to ourselves or to someone else is, obviously, of no use to anyone.

. . .

At a time of religious revival across the Muslim world, Algeria's youth are in play. The focus of this contest is the schools, where for decades Islamists controlled what children learned, and how they learned, officials and education experts here said.

Now the government is urgently trying to re-engineer Algerian identity, changing the curriculum to wrest momentum from the Islamists, provide its youth with more employable skills, and combat the terrorism it fears schools have inadvertently encouraged.

It appears to be the most ambitious attempt in the region to change a school system to make its students less vulnerable to religious extremism.

But many educators are resisting the changes, and many disenchanted young men are dropping out of schools. It is a tense time in Algiers, where city streets are crowded with police officers and security checkpoints and alive with fears that Algeria is facing a resurgence of Islamic terrorism. From 1991 to 2002, as many as 200,000 Algerians died in fighting between government forces and Islamic terrorists. Now one of the main terrorist groups, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or G.S.P.C., has affiliated with Al Qaeda, rebranding itself as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

. . .

The two natures of the country reflect the way in which Algerian identity was cleaved in half by 132 years of French colonial rule, and then again by independence and forced Arabization. Once the French were driven out in 1962, the Algerians were determined to forge a national identity free from Western influence.

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Education is like water and air.

The best path to civilization is the education, training of girls. The first necessity of moral refinement for girls is to be educated, trained, and cultured. Every nation that wants to become civilized has to begin educating and training girls from an early age. Each nation, according to their own religious laws and practices, should provide it [education] for them with any means possible.

Indeed, these girls will become mothers themselves, and their children will socialize with one another and their habits and disposition will spread among each other. But if they have all been educated in a good manner and with moral refinement, then there can be established in that nation a higher civilization. In this manner, the nation will develop and complete its march of progress by becoming civilized.

On the other hand, if the girls [children] are trained and raised by an uneducated mother, then the bad moods, habits, and disposition will have a bad affect on the children. Along with the growth and mental maturity, an indecent manner will be formed and become a habit; and it will also spread among the children. Therefore, barbarism will develop among the people and they will never become a civilized nation. . .

. . . All the subjects of my empire, without discrimination, shall be received into the civil and military schools of the government, if they otherwise satisfy the conditions as to age and examination which are specified in the organic regulations of the said schools. Moreover, every community is authorized to establish public schools of science, art, and industry. Only the method of instructions and the choice of professors in schools of this class shall be under the control of a mixed council of public instruction, the members of which shall be named by my sovereign command. . .