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Title
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Eugene Payne oral history interview 2, 2005 March 24
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Interviewee
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Payne, Eugene G., 1919-2010
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Interviewer
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Wright, Christina
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Place of Publication
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Charlotte, North Carolina
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Publisher
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J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
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Date of Interview
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2005-03-24
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Physical Description
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1 audio file (1:40:41) : digital, MP3
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Object Type
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sound recording-nonmusical
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Genre
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spoken word
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Language
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eng
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Interviewee Biography
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Eugene Payne was an 86-year-old man at the time of interview, which took place in his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was born in Charlotte in 1919. He was educated at Syracuse University, served in the Air Force, and was employed as an editorial cartoonist for the Charlotte Observer and for WSOC-TV.
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Abstract
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In this second interview, Eugene Payne discusses his forty-year career as an editorial cartoonist for the Charlotte Observer, his artwork, and winning his 1968 Pulitzer Prize. Mr. Payne discusses the role his mother played in supporting his early love of art and cartoons by ensuring that he could attend lectures and classes at the Mint Museum and take private lessons from visiting artists, including painter Robert Gwanthmey. However, it wasn't until he returned home to Charlotte following World War II that Mr. Payne combined his love of art and politics and pursued a career as an editorial cartoonist. In 1957 he was hired by the Observer's editor C.A. "Pete" McKnight as a freelance cartoonist before becoming the Observer's staff artist in 1960. Mr. Payne describes his process for creating an editorial cartoon each day, and his preferences for topical and local subjects. He also explains that although his political views differed from the Observer editorial page, he never had to produce a cartoon supporting an opinion that he did not believe in, and that ultimately he felt working for a paper with a different editorial perspective than his own had been a positive experience. Mr. Payne then talks about winning the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1968, and describes the background to each of the ten award-winning cartoons. Mr. Payne also discusses his seven years working as an editorial cartoonist at WSOC-TV and the difficulties they faced in trying to bring editorial cartoons to television. He also recounts meeting a number of U.S. presidents--including John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford--as a member and former president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. In particular, he shares several stories of LBJ, explaining that Johnson was a big fan of political cartoons and hosted a number of events for the nation's editorial cartoonists during his presidency. Mr. Payne concludes the interview by reflecting on the difficulties facing young and aspiring cartoonists as more and more newspapers rely on syndicated work to decrease their newsroom budgets.
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Digital Object Notes
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MP3 access copy created on ingest from WAV preservation master. Interview originally recorded on two minidiscs and digitized using a Digidesign 003 rack.
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Interviewee Occupations
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Editorial cartoonists
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Subjects--Names
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Payne, Eugene G., 1919-2010
Gwathmey, Robert, 1903-1988
McKnight, C. A.
Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973
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Subjects--Events
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Vietnam War (1961-1975)
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Subjects--Topics
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Art
Cartooning
Caricatures and cartoons
Editorial cartoons
Editorial cartoonists
Newspapers
Pulitzer Prizes
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Subjects--Geographic
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North Carolina--Charlotte
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Subjects--Genre
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Interviews
Oral histories
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Subjects--Titles
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Charlotte observer (Charlotte, N.C. : 1916)
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Coverage--Dates
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1920-2010
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Digital Collection Title
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Charlotte regional oral history
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Digital Project Title
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Living Charlotte : the postwar development of a New South city
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Rights
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The materials included on this web site are freely available for private study, scholarship or non-commercial research under the fair use provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, United States Code). Any use beyond the provisions of fair use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly publication, broadcast, redistribution or mounting on another web site always require prior written permission and may also be subject to additional restrictions and fees. UNC Charlotte does not hold literary rights to all materials in its collections and the researcher is responsible for securing those rights when needed. Copyright information for specific collections is available upon request.
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Grant Information
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Digitization made possible by funding from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.
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Internet Media Type
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audio/mpeg
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Related Interviews
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Eugene Payne oral history interview 1, 2005 February 24, J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (https://goldmine.uncc.edu/islandora/object/uncc%3A237)
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Related Materials
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Eugene Payne cartoons, J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (https://findingaids.uncc.edu/repositories/4/resources/33)
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Identifier
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OH-PA0456