Judge cover — December 13, 1905

Judge was a weekly satirical magazine founded in New York City on October 29, 1881 by a group of cartoonists and writers — including James Albert Wales, Frank Tousey, and George H. Jessop — who had left the rival Puck. After William J. Arkell purchased the magazine in the mid-1880s, he was able to draw away Puck cartoonists Eugene Zimmerman and Bernhard Gillam, and aligned Judge editorially with the Republican Party. Under editor Isaac Gregory (1886–1901) the magazine campaigned for William McKinley through the work of cartoonists Victor Gillam and Grant E. Hamilton, and by 1912 circulation had reached about 100,000. Norman Rockwell painted his first Judge cover, Excuse Me!, on July 7, 1917. Harold Ross briefly served as editor in 1924 before leaving to launch The New Yorker the following year. The combined pressure of The New Yorker and the Great Depression pushed Judge to a monthly schedule in 1932, and the magazine ceased publication in 1947.

Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division. This work is in the public domain in the United States.