Tom Little

Thomas Little (September 27, 1898 – June 20, 1972) was an American editorial cartoonist. Working for The Nashville Tennessean, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1957.

Biography Little was born in Snatch (now called Peytonsville) in an extremely rural part of Williamson County, Tennessee. His father died when he was two, and his family lived with his grandfather, who taught Little to draw before he could even write. His first job was picking potatoes for 50 cents a day, but the next year he entered the news business at age nine by folding issues of the Williamson County News. His tenure at the paper was interrupted by service in the US Army (at 5'2", he was rejected by the US Marines for being underweight) and a year (1923–24) as a reporter and cartoonist at the syndicate of the New York Herald Tribune. Little became one of the most influential and republished cartoonists in the US.

Beginning in 1934, Little collaborated with Tom Sims (writer of Popeye) on a single panel comic strip for King Features called Sunflower Street, depicting the lives of rural African-Americans. Though well-intentioned, the strip was cancelled in 1949 for fear that the strip would be viewed as condescending and draw racially based complaints. she was an editor for The Nashville Tennessean.

Little retired in 1970.