Business Men of Dayton

1905-1906

PRESENTED IN CARICATURE

Caricatures and biographical information extracted from

THE DAYTON DAILY JOURNAL

Compiled by Curt Dalton

Copyright 1995

Preface

            It all started while I was doing some research in a local newspaper called the Dayton Daily Journal.  In the August 21, 1905 edition I spotted a caricature of S. T. Hunter.  Mr. Hunter was the local manager of R. G. Dun & Company at the time.  The caricature showed Mr. Hunter with an open credit rating book, showing it to a man whose body was in the shape of the world.  The drawing was well done and the information written about Mr. Hunter and R. G. Dun was both entertaining and informative.

            I began to search for more of these caricatures and eventually came up with 88 of them.  They were drawn by a local business called Driscoll & Company, which was owned by Devoss Woodward Driscoll, who was a well-known cartoonist for the Dayton Daily News.  He took the likeness of the business men from photographs taken by local photographers, including A. Lincoln Bowersox, Adolph Grossman and W. T. Swartzbaugh.  The U. B. Eng. on each caricature stands for United Brethren Engraving Department of Dayton, who would retouch photographs or drawings, then make etched plates out of them so that the drawing or photograph could be reproduced in a book or newspaper. 

            The biographical information that has been included with each cartoon was duplicated with as little editing as possible.  You will notice that there are some punctuation, capitalization and grammatical errors, but I left them in to preserve the integrity of the original. The caricatures are a delightful part of Dayton’s past and they help give us an insight into the men who helped make this city great.                                                                            

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