Jay Norwood Darling
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Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling (October 21, 1876 - February 12, 1962) was a Pulitzer-Prize winning American cartoonist.
Darling was born in Norwood, Michigan, where his parents, Marcellus and Clara, had recently moved so that Marcellus could begin work as a minister. In 1886 the family moved to Sioux City, Iowa. Darling began college at Yankton College in South Dakota in 1894, changing to Beloit College in Wisconsin the following year. There he became art editor of the yearbook and began signing his work as a contraction of his last name, "D'ing," a nickname which stuck.
In 1900 Ding became a reporter for the Sioux City Journal newspaper. Following his marriage to Genevieve Pendleton in 1906, he began work with the Des Moines Register and Leader. In 1911 he moved to New York and worked with the New York Globe but returned to Des Moines in 1913. Three years later, in 1916, he returned to New York and accepted a position with the New York Herald Tribune. By 1919 Darling returned a final time to Des Moines where he continued his illustrious career as a cartoonist, twice receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. His cartoons were in from 1917-1949 by the New York Herald Tribune.
Although Jay "Ding" Darling is mostly known for his political and conservation cartoons, he also an important figure in the Conservation movement. He drew the design for the first Federal Duck Stamp, and, despite his inexperience, he was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as head of the U.S. Biological Survey, the forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island in Southwest Florida is named for him in addition to the Lake Darling State Park in Iowa that was dedicated on September 17, 1950. He also founded the National Wildlife Federation in 1936, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt convened the first North American Wildlife Conference.
