William Allen White

From This Might Be A Wiki
William Allen White


William Allen White (February 10, 1868 – January 29, 1944), a renowned American newspaper editor, politician, author, and leader of the Progressive movement, is the owner of the jolly, smiling face so familiar to fans of They Might Be Giants.

White was a highly influential journalist in his time. From 1896 until his death, he owned and served as editor for the local Kansas newspaper The Emporia Gazette, and was sometimes referred to as the "Sage of Emporia." Nationally known for his sharp editorial writing, he was considered an unofficial spokesman for small-town middle America. His editorials were widely read and reprinted, and he was awarded with two Pulitzer Prizes.

They Might Be Giants have been using White's image for decades, and his face has become an unofficial icon of the band. Giant cardboard cutouts of White's portrait have be seen at They Might Be Giants concerts, TV performances, and music videos. His face is also displayed prominently in the logo of this very wiki. White's face appeared in most of the band's music videos in the 1980s and '90s, and has occasionally featured in videos since. The band has also used his portrait as stage decoration and in promotional material. A tongue-in-cheek report about White, hosted by Vance DeGeneres, was included as a bonus feature on the Gigantic (A Tale Of Two Johns) documentary DVD.

The band took inspiration for their props of White from Öyvind Fahlström's 1966 video art piece "Mao-Hope March". The artwork depicts a demonstration in New York City, with people carrying large placard portraits of Bob Hope and Mao Zedong. John Linnell recalled in a 2015 interview: "I'm not exactly sure what Fahlström was intending to say but the effect was so exciting and hilarious that [John] Flansburgh wanted to create our own mysterious version." The artwork was also referenced in the 2018 song "McCafferty's Bib". The band initially wanted to use the face of Orson Welles as a prop, "but we knew he would sue us, so we used a more obscure guy who has yet to sue us."[1]

John Flansburgh and John Linnell were not familiar with White before they chose him as an icon.[2] They have stated that White held no significance to them, "we just liked the way his face looked."[3] The band obtained the portrait of White from the 23rd volume of Collier's Encyclopedia. Flansburgh worked for a time at Macmillan Publishers, which is where he found the image. He recalled: "I worked in the stat room and they had all the encyclopedias there, and so I just kind of pulled his face out from an encyclopedia and statted it up real big." The band was initially hesitant to acknowledge the face's identity out of fear of legal consequences,[4] though they finally revealed it in a 1991 newsletter.

They Might Be Giants have used a number of other faces as iconography over the years. Cardboard masks of Liaquat Ali Khan, Arthur Koestler, Spiro Agnew and another unidentified man where used as stage props the 1980s. In 1989, the band replaced their stage decorations of White with an unidentified woman, whose photo was supposedly sourced from a book of 1930s Soviet photography.[5] In the mid-1990s, the band used as stage decoration a photo of Sally Jane Bruce, who played Pearl Harper in the film The Night of the Hunter. At around the same time they also used a photo of an unidentified man with a cigar, which is said to be a still from a 1930s film.[6]

Gallery[edit]

  • Portrait of White from Life magazine, February 28, 1938

  • Entry in Collier's Encyclopedia, the source from which the band took White's portrait

  • Öyvind Fahlström's "Mao-Hope March", an inspiration behind the band's props

Appearances[edit]

Live shows[edit]

Other faces[edit]

See also[edit]

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