Dr. FDR & Baby War: The world through Chicago political cartoons before and after Pearl Harbor

In the waning days of autumn 1941, readers of Chicago's top morning and evening papers read about what appeared to be two different wars: one the United States needed to join and one it desperately needed to avoid. By the time the presses rolled after the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, only one war was reported. This content analysis of editorial cartoons in the weeks before and after Pearl Harbor explores the themes emphasized by these bitter newspaper rivals—one run by President Roosevelt's harshest critic in the press and the other by Roosevelt's Navy secretary. Results suggest that even when the newspapers rallied around the flag, they often rallied around two different flags.