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Monongahela native honored with a Google Doodle

By Brad Hundt for The 2 min read
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Courtesy of Google

This image of cartoonist Jackie Ormes, a Monongahela native, was the Google homepage image recently.

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Courtesy of Google

This image of cartoonist Jackie Ormes, a Monongahela native, was the Google homepage image recently.

On Sept. 1, 1945, the single-panel cartoon “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger” appeared in the pages of The Pittsburgh Courier for the first time.

It depicted Ginger, a clever Black 6-year-old, speaking uncomfortable truths about issues of the day, to her fashionable older sister Patty-Jo. Over the next 11 years, Ginger would offer witty commentary about racism, the Red Scare, the threat of nuclear annihilation and a host of other topics.

“Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger” was the creation of Jackie Ormes, a Monongahela native who blazed a trail by being the first female and Black cartoonist to have her work syndicated. On the 75th anniversary of the debut of “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger,” Ormes was honored last week with a Google Doodle, which took the place of the company’s logo on the Google homepage.

The Google Doodle was accompanied by a slideshow detailing Ormes’ life and work as a cartoonist. The Doodle was illustrated by Philadelphia-area artist Liz Montague, who said Ormes was “a huge inspiration” for her.

“She made such honest, fearless work and centered it entirely around Black women,” Montague said. “Her work is so timeless, too. I read her cartoons today, and I feel so seen.”

Montague added, “Her work is just the total package.”

Ormes was born Zelda Mavin Jackson in Pittsburgh in 1911. Her family moved to Monongahela after her father was killed in an automobile accident and her mother remarried. Displaying a knack for drawing early on, she went to work for the Courier as a proofreader and reporter. Before “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger,” she created the strip, “Torchy Brown in ‘Dixie to Harlem,'” the tale of a girl who leaves the South in search of stardom at the Cotton Club in New York. Torchy Brown exemplified the struggles Black Americans had as they migrated from the South to the North.

Ormes died in Chicago in 1985. A marker honoring her was placed in Monongahela’s Chess Park in 2016 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

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