Homer Davenport

Homer Calvin Davenport was a political cartoonist and writer from the United States. He was one of the first major American breeders of Arabian horses. He died in 1912 of pneumonia, which he contracted after going to the docks of New York City to watch and chronicle the arrival of survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

About Homer Davenport in brief

Homer Calvin Davenport was a political cartoonist and writer from the United States. He is known for drawings that satirized figures of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, most notably Ohio Senator Mark Hanna. He was one of the first major American breeders of Arabian horses. He died in 1912 of pneumonia, which he contracted after going to the docks of New York City to watch and chronicle the arrival of survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. His parents were Timothy Woodbridge and Florinda Willard Daven port, the family had deep progressive roots, and his grandfather, Benjamin, had been a doctor and abolitionist whose home in Ohio was a stop on the Underground Railroad. He tried a variety of jobs before gaining employment as a cartoonist, initially working at several newspapers on the West Coast, including The San Francisco Examiner, purchased by William Randolph Hearst. His talent for drawing and interest in Arabian horses dovetailed in 1893 at the Chicago Daily Herald when he studied and drew the Arabian horses exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition. His later years were marked by fewer influential cartoons and a troubled personal life; he dedicated much of his time to his animal breeding pursuits, traveled widely, and gave lectures. He was a lifelong lover of animals and of country living; he not only raised horses, but also exotic poultry and other animals. His father Timothy trained in medicine, but became a surveyor and writer later dubbed \”The Sage of Silverton\”.

He had been the Indian agent for the Umatilla Agency in 1862, surveyor of Marion County in 1864, and later in his life, Oregon Land Agent. He served as an Oregon state representative from 1868 to 1872 and was elected a state senator in 1882. He ran unsuccessfully for the United United States House of Representatives on the Independent Party ticket in 1874. He also had a daughter, Orla, who died of smallpox in 1870, and on her deathbedbed, asked her husband to give Homer a box of paints as a Christmas gift. She was an admirer of the political cartoons of Thomas Nast that appeared in Harper’s Weekly. While pregnant with Homer, she developed a belief, which she viewed as a prophecy, that her child would become as a famous cartoonist as Nast. She also was also influenced by the essay “How To Born Genius”, by Russell Trall, and closely followed Trall’s recommendations for diet andcentration during her pregnancy. She later stated that Homer had also had horse on the brain on the entire winter of 1870–1871, in part because the entire family was quarantined on the small stage of the quarantine of quarantines. In 1906, he traveled extensively amongst the Anazeh people of Syria and went through a brotherhood ceremony with the Bedouin leader who guided his travels. The 27 horses he purchased and brought to the U.S. had a profound and lasting impact on Arabian horse breeding.

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