Hang In There, Baby

1971

Date: 1971 · Place: Los Angeles, California · Figures: Victor Baldwin, photographer · Jeanne Baldwin, co-author of 'Kliban's Cat'-era poster context · Argus Communications, distributor · Tags: Poster, Workplace, OfficeKitsch 01. Sassy on the Bamboo Victor Baldwin, a Los Angeles photographer best known for the 1961 book The Funny Side of Cats, shoots a kitten named Sassy clinging to a bamboo pole sometime in 1970. The image is published as a poster by Argus Communications of Niles, Illinois, in 1971 with the caption Hang In There, Baby. Argus prints it on heavy stock, retails it at one dollar fifty, and ships it to college bookstores and head shops nationally. 02. The Office Wall Within eighteen months the poster is on cubicle walls, dorm rooms, dentist offices, and high school guidance counselor doors across the United States. President Carter is reported to have a copy in a White House staff office in 1977. By 1979 over three hundred and fifty thousand copies are sold. The template, animal in difficulty plus motivational caption, becomes the dominant inspirational format for the next thirty years and the structural ancestor of every captioned cat picture on the early web. The image macro is born in a 1971 office supply catalog. Sources • Hannah Rosefield, 'A Brief History of Hang In There, Baby', The Paris Review Daily, 29 July 2014 • Victor Baldwin, 'The Funny Side of Cats' (Putnam, 1961) • Argus Communications product catalogs 1971-1979, Newberry Library trade collection