“I Have a Vision, Charlie Brown”

From the very beginning, Schulz was an advocate for strong, independent females. Characters like Lucy and Peppermint Patty refused to be defined or dominated by the boys, whether in social interactions, school, or sports. Lucy became a vocal supporter of women’s liberation. These characters became important popular symbols for the burgeoning feminist movement in Cold War America. Peppermint Patty and Marcie, because of their unique relationship, became powerful symbols for lesbian, bisexual, and queer women in a culture where they often felt unrepresented. Schulz took a direct role in endorsing and championing Title IX reforms for women’s athletics, lending his artwork to the national debate.

I Believe in Conserving Energy

Peanuts was a suburban story and expressed many of the contemporary concerns about the environment and the future. Nature played an important role in Schulz’s work, becoming an active member of the cast at times. Schulz’s conception of environmental responsibility attempted to balance alleviating the negative consequences of modern industry with the need for continued industrial productivity. This environmental ethos made Peanuts characters attractive mascots for 1970s presidential administrations looking to market their own public policies in the midst of the energy and pollution crises of the decade. At times, however, Schulz’s work could be deployed by corporate leaders as a way to deflect their own industrial responsibility onto individual consumers.

The Future Frightens Me

Peanuts in the 1950s could be a strange, quirky, existentialist journey. Equal parts bleak and absurd, Charles Schulz’s humor resonated with mid-century Americans plagued by feelings of alienation, anxiety, and dislocation. Peanuts was in many ways a Cold War story. Nuclear explosions and fallout, cowboy and Indian battles, and spacemen played a prominent role in the children’s play. Linus’s security blanket and Lucy’s psychiatry booth became powerful metaphors for the therapeutic revolution in American culture and were regularly used in psychiatry textbooks of the period. Schulz’s work became increasingly popular among college-aged existentialists and beatniks. In 1955, Schulz’s rapid rise in popularity led to a national Cartoonist of the Year award.

Crosshatch Is Beautiful

In 1968, Charles Schulz made pop-culture history when Peanuts became the first national comic strip to racially integrate. This event was a long time in the making. Even in Schulz’s earliest works he experimented with racial commentary. But in 1968 a California teacher and mother wrote to Schulz to persuade him to introduce a black character in his comic strip. Through a series of passionate letters, Schulz finally created Franklin to honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. Franklin made a major splash in American culture, especially when he integrated the school classroom. Despite his best efforts, though, Schulz struggled to find a unique personality for Franklin and he ultimately failed to make the lasting difference in Peanuts that some fans had hoped.

Epilogue

Peanuts persists to this day as an important shorthand in political and social commentary. The legacy Schulz established in his comic strip has been caught and carried on by his fans. Despite his passing in 2000, Peanuts is one of the highest grossing cartoon properties in the world. As Peanuts’ relationship with insurer MetLife demonstrates, however, the twenty-first century has presented new challenges to the continued relevance of Peanuts in American pop culture. While some were unsure that the characters could survive without Schulz, Peanuts has been remarkably resilient and enjoyed a resurgence in film, television, and publication in recent years.

Introduction

Many critics have assumed that Peanuts was popular in Cold War America because it was apolitical and inoffensive, yet the opposite is actually true. This introduction reviews how Charles Schulz’s comic strip regularly engaged in political and social commentary. Even more, thousands of fans wrote regular letters to discuss, critique, and debate the messages they read in Peanuts each day. For nearly fifty years, Peanuts was an important part of popular discourse around political and social events. Schulz’s unique wishy-washy style allowed fans from across the American political spectrum to see their values, concerns, and hopes reflected in this enduring comic strip.

You’re a Good Man, Charles Schulz

Charles Schulz’s early life in St. Paul, Minnesota shaped the world of Peanuts. Playing sports, doodling in class, and reading newspaper comic strips dominated his childhood. His life took an unexpected turn, however, as a young adult. His mother died from cancer and he was drafted to go fight in Europe during World War II. It was an intensely lonely period of his life. During this time he experienced a spiritual awakening and became an active participant in the emerging evangelical revivalist movement. Through practice and persistence, Schulz worked his way from local cartoonist to national phenomenon in a surprisingly short time.

Bless You for Charlie Brown

Schulz was always a Christian artist, but beginning in the late 1950s he started being more overt about his faith. After attending a 1957 Billy Graham Crusade meeting in New York City, Schulz was convinced that he needed to say more about Christianity in his work. Linus became the vehicle for discussing faith and theology. During this period, Peanuts began to appear in Christian sermons across denominations. It was even the subject of a bestselling book on Christian theology in 1965. The culmination of this personal mission was the success of the first Peanuts television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, which sought to combat rising commercialism by recentering the Nativity in the public celebration of the holiday.

Snoopy Is the Hero in Vietnam

This chapter focuses on Snoopy, the character who was one of the more surprising critics of the American approach to the Vietnam War. In particular, Snoopy’s imaginary conflict as the World War I flying ace fighting the Red Baron became a unique commentary on the impact of war on the American homefront. The character also became a popular symbol among American servicemen, both to register their dedication to the fight and their frustrations with the war itself. For his part, Schulz mapped a path of support for troops, but disdain for the unpopular war and especially for the continuance of the draft.