Edmund Duffy was born March 1, 1899 in Jersey City, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 to a middle class family. Duffy made his name as an editorial cartoonist for The Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....

. He joined the paper in 1924 and received high praise from H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...

. He was among the first white cartoonist to attack the Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

 and lynching

Lynching

Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...

. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning

Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning

The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning has been awarded since 1922 for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing, and pictorial effect...

 three times from 1931 to 1940. He married Anne Elizabeth Rector

Anne Elizabeth Rector

Anne Elizabeth Rector was an American artist and author. She was the daughter of Enoch J. Rector and she attended the Art Students League of New York studying under John French Sloan. Ann also studied landscape painting under Andrew Dasburg...

, daughter of Enoch J. Rector

Enoch J. Rector

Enoch J. Rector was an American boxing film promoter and early cinema technician. He was a partner in Woodville Latham's Kinetoscope Exhibition Company during the mid-1890s, working with Latham and his sons Otway and Grey, as well as fellow cinema technicians William Kennedy Laurie Dickson and...

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