SUBJECTS
Advertising, Art, Civics, Communication, US Government, US History
GRADE LEVEL
8-12
OBJECTIVES
Political campaigns are all about persuasion. Voters must be persuaded to vote for a candidate, to endorse a position, even to actually get to a polling place. Today, campaigns use all sorts of techniques to persuade, from yard signs to campaign brochures to television ads to social media.
In the 1950 Senate campaign in Illinois, the incumbent senator, Scott Lucas, a Democrat and the Majority Leader of the Senate, used a comic book to persuade voters of his qualifications. This lesson asks students to (1) identify the messages the comic book intended to convey; (2) describe the qualities of the candidate the book emphasized; (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the comic book approach in depicting those qualities; and (4) prepare a comic book storyboard for one of today’s candidates.
LESSON PLAN
Context: The 1950 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Illinois pitted Republican challenger Everett M. Dirksen against incumbent Democrat Scott Lucas, Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. The Illinois Democratic State Central Committee produced a 16-page, professionally illustrated, full-color, cartoon-style brochure on Lucas’s behalf -- http://www.congresslink.org/lucasbrochure/index.html. Even today, it is an amazing piece of campaign literature complete with headings set apart from cartoon frames filled with action scenes and dialogue presented in bubbles. The span of subjects is equally impressive. They include depictions of Lucas’s ancestors; his early years of a hard-scrabble existence; his education, law practice, and public service; his election first to House, then to Senate, and finally to his leadership position; and his stance on issues.
Lucas, not Dirksen, could afford the extravagance of such a brochure. In selecting this option, the campaign reviewed several examples of comic books, including one devoted to Harry Truman’s life and career. They even consulted research on the effectiveness of comic books. For example, a study entitled, “Adult America’s Interest in Comics,” reported these findings: four out of every five urban adults read comics; the reading of comics was widespread among all levels of society; people who read comics generally spent more time listening to the radio, read more magazines, and attended more movies than people who did not; a much higher percentage of adults with a college education read comics than those limited to a grade school education; one out of four adults was a present reader of comic books.
Lucas’s campaign selected Commercial Comics, Inc. to produce the piece. The contract called for a press run of one million at a cost of $13,250. The shipment weighed 50,000 pounds and occupied 1,600 cubic feet.
Step 1. Have the students link to “Scott W. Lucas: The Nation’s Number One Senator” at http://www.congresslink.org/lucasbrochure/index.html and read the entire comic book.
Step 2. Students will identify between three and five of Scott Lucas’s qualities or experiences that the book emphasizes as qualifications for his reelection. Examples: working his way through school, upbringing in the state, experience as an attorney, his stance on issues, etc.
Step 3. As a class, post the qualities/experiences so that students can assign a rank priority to them. For example, is the candidature’s prior experience in the Senate more important than his roots in the community?
Step 4. Prompt discussion by posing such questions as these: Why was it important to explain what Lucas did as the Democratic Floor Leader to potential voters? Is it possible that being the Leader was a disadvantage to the candidate? What were the issues of the day and what was Lucas’s position on them? How effective is the cartoon approach in conveying the message that Lucas deserved to be reelected? Why would the comic book approach work, or not work, in today’s political campaign?
Step 5. As an option, have students create a storyboard for a current candidate. This will require them to do research about the candidate, decide what’s important to convey about that person’s qualifications, and suggest images that would depict the chosen message.
RESOURCES
“Scott W. Lucas: The Nation’s Number One Senator” at http://www.congresslink.org/lucasbrochure/index.html
CREDIT
The Dirksen Congressional Center staff.
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