Political Cartoons

President Johnson was a dynamic man with little interest in hobbies, and probably did not consider himself to be a collector. But his hobby was politics, and he amassed a political cartoon collection that totals over 4000 drawings. The LBJ Presidential Library political cartoon collection likely began in the late 1930s when cartoonist Jack Patton sent Congressman Johnson an original autographed drawing. By 1960, Johnson had assembled, by the use of the telephone and an occasional letter to the cartoonist, 150 cartoons dating mostly from his years in the Senate. Once in the White House, President Johnson then assigned a staff assistant the task of locating and soliciting cartoons. These cartoons make up the bulk of the museum’s political cartoon collection.