Ringgold County IAGenWeb Project

Ringgold County Iowa
Part of the IaGenWeb Project

Tingley Chautauqau, 1917

NED WOODMAN

Edwin Wright WOODMAN, better known as Ned WOODMAN, is a humorist who is unusally gifted with means of expression. He is funny to look at, - says funny things in prose, verse and dialect, - composes music and, perhaps best of all, draws pictures; for it is upon his work as a cartoonist that his widest reputation has been based. He was an artist long before he became an entertainer and lecturer.

He studied in the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago.

For about three years he was on the art staff of the Chicago Inter Ocean. He has also been associated with The Journal, The Record-Herald, The Ram's Horn and other Chicago publications, has contributed cartoons and illustrations to scores - about 60 - to other newspapers, trade journals, class publications, magazines and humorous periodicals, including Life and Judge, and has exhibited in the Art Institute of Chicago.

During the Autumn of 1903, he was engaged by the Chicago Record-Herald to invent and draw a remarkably ingenious and amusing series of puzzles and games, which they published in the form of full pages in colors. He utilizes his peculiar inventive faculty on the platform in the production of surprising transformation pictures.

His "Chalkologues," or chalk-talks, are interspersed with readings from popular humorists, delivered in a spirited and highly pleasing manner, while his original humor is of that quaint, dry sort that crops out where it is least expected.

Ned WOODMAN came before Lyceum committees with such exceptional claims that it can be truthfully said, "No Cartoonist has been received with more universal favor than WOODMAN, since the commencement of his platform career a few years ago." The Luceum committees are unanimous in declaring WOODMAN the best.

Like his work on the platform, his cartoons have given abundant evidence of WOODMAN'S ability to show the salient features of some national event by a picture-impression; his ability also to present the humorous side of some public incident - all conceived and executed with a freshness, an originality, and that touch of art that elevates him to the position of a public teacher.

His humor being of such a character that the printing press can show only a part of it, he mounted the platform in 1909 and discovered that he was very much at home there. At the time of this writing [date unknown] he has filled considerably over two thousand engagements, entertaining audiences in every state of the Union except two, besides four provinces of Canada.

His rapid-fire remarks, stories, dialect readings and orginal verses would be highly entertaining even without illustrations, but he will bear watching as well as listening to, because his lecture-recitals are built around those big crayon pictures which he draws while his tongue is running. Beautiful landscapes, comical cartoons, funny of dignified faces, pleasant surprises and transformations appear upon his easels, each bearing some sort of message or lesson, for WOODMAN'S appreciation of serious things are as deep as his sense of humor.

Ned WOOMAN'S class of work has a distinct advantage over a mere lecture. His evening's program is meant to enliven and amuse, to inform and educate - mainly through the eye. The familiar phrase runs: "What goes in one ear is apt to go out the other." But what reaches the mind through the eye has no exit; once there, it is there to stay. Hence the work of the Cartoonist has the additional asset of greater permanency. WOODMAN lectures while he draws, and his personality is most pleasing. His attitude, before the audience, is one of mental and manual alertness throughout, and he is particularly happy in his treatment of the persons, things, and incidents under his review. WOODMAN is a wit, and passes from one situation to another with a light but effective touch, while his audience - the youngest and the eldest, the cultured and the uncultured - respond with all the evidence of delighted appreciation. Not in any sense is WOODMAN a copyist; originality characterized both his pictures and his speech.

He leaves you with something better than the mere memory of having been amused. Such words as "instructive" and "uplifting" have been used by ministers and others in speaking of his work. These may or may not be extravagant expressions; judge for yourself, but not before you have seen and heard him.

Although Ned WOODMAN has already had a wide platform experience, he may be regarded as only at the beginning of a brilliant career as Cartoonist and Wit. An evening with WOODMAN has all the virtures to be found in a good lecture, and all the fascination of an entertainment, in addition.

Wholesome, instructive features are not omitted, for his appreciation of serious things is as deep as his sense of humor. As he expresses it, he "puts point and purpose into nearlly all the stunts" in his program, and flavors them so pleasantly that they are decidedly "easy to take."

Chalk-Talk	A Little Nonsense	Playbill	Playbill
Ned WOODMAN	Ned WOODMAN Ad	Ned WOODMAN portrait	"Uncle Joe"
Cartoons	"Uncle Sam"	"Theodore Roosevelt"	"Willie"
Playbill	Chalk-Talk	Chalk-Talk	Chalk-Talk