{{Short description|American political cartoonist and engraver}} {{for|the state politician from Tennessee|James H. Akin}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = James Akin | birth_date = {{circa}} 1773 | birth_place = Province of South Carolina | death_date = 1846 (aged {{circa}} 73) | occupation = Cartoonist }} '''James Akin''' ({{Circa}} 1773 {{ndash}} 1846) was an American political cartoonist and engraver from South Carolina. He worked in Philadelphia and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Associates included President William Henry Harrison and Jacob Perkins.<ref>{{cite journal |author=F.B. Sanborn |year=1898 |title=Thomas Leavitt and his Artist Friend James Akin |journal=The Granite Monthly: A New Hampshire Magazine |volume=25 |location=Concord, N.H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JlMXAAAAYAAJ&q=%22thomas+leavitt%22+boston&pg=PA225 }}</ref> His works are held at the American Antiquarian Society, Library of Congress, U.S. National Portrait Gallery, and Winterthur Museum.<ref name="Quimby">Maureen O'Brien Quimby. The Political Art of James Akin. Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 7 (1972), pp. 59–112 {{JSTOR|1180534}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Quimby |first=Maureen O'Brien |date=1972 |title=The Political Art of James Akin |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1180534 |journal=Winterthur Portfolio |volume=7 |pages=59–112 |doi=10.1086/495805 |jstor=1180534 |s2cid=154277762 |issn=0084-0416|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[File:President Andrew Jackson fights France.jpg|thumb|340px|1835 cartoon shows President Jackson challenging French King Louis Philippe, whose crown is falling off; Jackson is advised by king Neptune, and backed up by an American warship. On the left are French politicians, depicted as little frogs, complaining about the Americans.]]
==Skillet incident== In the early 1800s, Akin worked as an engraver for Edmund March Blunt in Newburyport. "In late October 1804 the two men argued publicly, and in the course of the disagreement Blunt threw an iron skillet at Akin, hitting an unfortunate passerby. Akin, uninjured, retaliated with a deragotory print of Blunt entitled 'Infuriated Despondency' and a verse he called 'A Skillet Song.'"<ref>Christina H. Nelson. Transfer-Printed Creamware and Pearlware for the American Market. Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Summer, 1980), pp. 93–115 {{JSTOR|1180534}}</ref> The caricature was later featured in the ''Newburyport Herald'' in 1805 and in pottery throughout London and Liverpool in 2006, heaping scorn upon Blunt and his descendants. A few examples still exist.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.common-place.org/vol-10/no-02/lessons/ |title=All in my eye! |website=Common-place |date=January 2010 |first=Allison |last=Stagg |access-date=March 15, 2019 }}</ref>
==Images== Examples of Akin's work: <gallery class="center"> Image:1802 Columbia SouthCarolina byJamesAkin Winterthur.png|Illustration by Akin published in John Drayton's ''A View of South Carolina,'' 1802 (Winterthur Museum) File:A Philosophic Cock.jpg|Caricature of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, ca.1804, attributed to Akin (American Antiquarian Society) Image:1805 InfuriatedDespondency byJamesAkin NewburyportMA WorcesterArtMuseum.png|"Infuriated Despondency," 1805; satirical portrait of Edmund M. Blunt wielding footed skillet (Worcester Art Museum) Image:1824 Caucus curs by JamesAkin LC 00005v.jpg|"Caucus curs in full yell," 1824; critique of "the press's treatment of Andrew Jackson, and on the practice of nominating candidates by caucus during the presidential race of 1824" (Library of Congress)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002708979/ |title=Caucus curs in full yell, or a war whoop, to saddle on the people, a pappoose president / J[ames] Akin, Aquafortis |author=Akin |year=1824 |publisher=Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |accessdate=April 24, 2012}}</ref> Image:1830 sabbatarians byJamesAkin Philadelphia AmericanAntiquarianSociety.png|1830 caricature of American Christian Sabbatarians, whose "goal was to prevent the federal government from desecrating the Sabbath by requiring that the mails be transported and the post offices open to the public seven days a week" (American Antiquarian Society)<ref>Richard R. John. Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously: The Postal System, the Sabbath, and the Transformation of American Political Culture. Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter 1990) {{JSTOR|3123626}}</ref> </gallery>
==Further reading== {{commons category|James Akin}} * Nina Fletcher Little. "The Cartoons of James Akin upon Liverpool Ware." Old-Time New England, (January 1938) * Lewis C. Rubenstein. "James Akin in Newburyport." Essex Institute Historical Collections (1966) * {{cite web |url=http://www.common-place.org/vol-10/no-02/lessons/ |title=Object Lessons: "All in my eye!" James Akin and his Newburyport social caricatures |author=Allison Stagg |work=Common-Place |date=January 2010 }}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{Internet Archive author}} * [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsead/umich-wcl-M-3119.2aki?id=navbarbrowselink;view=text James Akin Collection] at the William L. Clements Library
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Akin, James}} Category:1770s births Category:1846 deaths Category:19th-century American artists Category:19th-century American journalists Category:American caricaturists Category:American editorial cartoonists Category:American engravers Category:Artists from Charleston, South Carolina Category:People from Newburyport, Massachusetts Category:Writers from Charleston, South Carolina Category:Writers from Philadelphia Category:Year of birth uncertain Category:19th-century American male journalists