Joseph Keppler (b. 1838)

Born: 1838 February 1 in Wien, Austria

Died: 1894 February 19 in New York City, New York, United States

Biography: Joseph Ferdinand Keppler was an Austrian-born American cartoonist and caricaturist who greatly influenced the growth of satirical cartooning in the United States.

Starting in 1874, he began contributing political cartoons to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. In September 1876 he and fellow Frank Leslie employee Adolph Schwarzmann resurrected Puck for the New York German-American audience and then introduced an English-language version the following year. His cartoons were famous for their caustic wit, generating much publicity for Puck and pioneering the use of color lithography for caricature.

Keppler's opinions and wit endeared him to large sections of the American public. His illustrations cast light on complex politics, making issues clear to the average voter. Puck did not shy away from criticism of the administration and by influencing the perceptions of the voting public, certainly altered the course of American political history.


Initially Keppler drew all the Puck cartoons. When his workload became too much, he made use of several talented artists including Frederick Burr Opper, James A. Wales, Bernhard Gillam, Eugene Zimmerman, C. J. Taylor, and others.

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