The Wasp (magazine)

The Wasp was founded as a weekly satire magazine in San Francisco in 1876 by the Bohemian expatriate Francis Korbel and his two brothers, who also founded the Korbel Champagne Cellars.{{cite journal|first=Gray|last=Brechin|title= The Wasp: Stinging Editorials and Political Cartoons|journal=Bancroftiana|number=121| date= Fall 2002|pages=1+8|publisher=Friends of The Bancroft Library|url=http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/bancroftiana/ucb/text/bancroftiana_121.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116203528/http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/bancroftiana/ucb/text/bancroftiana_121.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2018-01-16}} The first issue was published on August 5, 1876.{{cite journal|author=Nicholas Sean Hall|title=WASP: Racism and Satire in the 19th Century|journal=California History|date=2013|volume=90|issue=2|url=http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=WASP:_Racism_and_Satire_in_the_19th_Century|accessdate=July 29, 2015}} The lead artist until 1883 was George Frederick Keller. The magazine was somewhat unusual at the time, owing to the Korbels' expertise in mass-producing color lithographs in print, a process they had come to master in their first business, the manufacture of labeled cigar boxes. The magazine was sold in secret in 1881 to Charles Webb Howard, who hired Edward C. Macfarlane as publisher. Ambrose Bierce was hired as editor soon afterward, serving in that role from January 1, 1881, until September 11, 1885. During Bierce's editorial tenure, The Wasp published his column "Prattle" and several serialized installments of his satirical definitions later collected as The Devil's Dictionary.

Political cartoons from The Wasp are often cited in Asian-American anti-defamation materials as an example of early stereotyping of Chinese immigrants.

With the following name changes, the magazine ran from August 5, 1876, to April 25, 1941:Edward E. Chielens, American Literary Magazines: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Greenwood Press, 1986), 437

• The Wasp, August 5, 1876 – January 20, 1877.
• The Illustrated Wasp, January 27 – September 22, 1877.
• The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp, September 29, 1877 – 1 December 1, 1880.{{cite web|title=The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp|url=http://thomasnastcartoons.com/west-coast-view/the-san-francisco-wasp/|work=T. Nast Cartoons|date=February 14, 2014|accessdate=July 29, 2015}}
• The Wasp, December 17, 1880 – October 5, 1895.
• The Wasp: The Illustrated Weekly of the Pacific Coast, October 12, 1895 – April 3, 1897.
• The Wasp: A Journal of Illustration and Comment, April 10, 1897 – August 25, 1928.
• The Wasp News-Letter: A weekly Journal of Illustration and Comment, September 1, 1928 – July 27, 1935.
• San Francisco News- Letter Wasp, August 3, 1935 – April 25, 1941.

file:Mussel Slough editorial cartoon - The Wasp 8 July 1881.jpg|Railroad tycoons Charles Crocker and Leland Stanford robbing victims in the Mussel Slough Tragedy (1881)

The Modern Messiah - Keller 1882.jpg|Oscar Wilde's San Francisco visit (1882)

file:Bayonet Constitution political cartoon 1887.jpg|Hawaiian Bayonet Constitution cartoon showing King Kalakaua being toppled (1887)

file:John Bull vs Grover Cleveland in Hawaii political cartoon 1887.jpg|Kalakaua, Kapiolani, Grover Cleveland, and John Bull battle for power in Hawaii (1887)

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|last1=West|first1=Richard Samuel|title=The San Francisco Wasp: An Illustrated History|date=2004|publisher=Periodyssey Press|location=Easthampton, Massachusetts|isbn=978-0971849440}}

{{commons category}}

• [https://archive.org/details/californiastatelibrary?and%5B%5D=%22The+Wasp%22&sin= The Wasp scanned volumes] at Internet Archive
• [http://alangullette.com/lit/bierce/master.htm Gullette, Alan. Ambrose Bierce, Master of the Macabre]
• [http://oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/april/0401-san-francisco.html Bierce's attack on Oscar Wilde in his column "Prattle".]

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Category:Satirical magazines published in the United States

Category:Weekly magazines published in the United States

Category:Defunct magazines published in the United States

Category:Magazines established in 1876

Category:Magazines disestablished in 1941

Category:Magazines published in San Francisco

Category:1876 establishments in California