Iowa Millennium Art – The 2000 Poster.

(C-0177-C-0179) **A New Year – A New Century – A New Millennium.** It’s not very often you have a New Year’s Day changing not only the year, but the century and millennium as well! To mark the special Y2K celebration, the **USPS** issued a commemorative stamp and here are three postal covers marking the three days of transition 1) December 27, 1999 – First Day of Issue,December 31, 1999 – Last Day of the old Millennium, and January 1, 2000 – First Day of the new Millennium.

(M-0094) In 2000, Brian Duffy, political cartoonist with the Des Moines Register from 1983-2008, put together a magnificent artistic overview of Iowa icons, ranging from President Herbert Hoover, George Washington Carver, Meredith Willson, and Grant Wood to John Wayne, Mamie Eisenhower, Johnny Carson, Bob Feller, and Nile Kinnick. 58 subjects – One colorful poster. We have secured two rare copies of this classic poster: one is framed and on display in our office; the second is signed by Duffy (see pics below) and includes a couple of pics of Brian signing the poster in 2016! A real treasure!

Where does time go? It is hard to believe that I have been drawing cartoons here in Iowa for thirty-two years. The first twenty-five was as the last front-page cartoonist in the nation. In 2009, the editor (Des Moines Register) at the time decided, rather arbitrarily, to do away with the paper’s popular tradition that stretched back over a century, to Ding Darling. I did not get mad…I got even. Upon the advice and assistance of some of the best journalists in the state, I went about setting up my own syndicate to provide cartoons on Iowa issues to newspapers all across the state of Iowa. To date the list of those outstanding newspapers stretch river to river. My national cartoons continue to appear in newspapers and on websites nationwide through King Features. Brian Duffy

Click here to read more about the rich Iowa tradition when it comes to Political Cartooning and The Des Moines Register.

***Here’s Brian Duffy’s legend to all 58 icons (click to enlarge).***

Here at Our Iowa Heritage, we’ve written posts on a good number of the 58 people/icons featured on Brian Duffy’s Millennium Poster. Click on the links (below) to access the stories.