The legacy of Siu Sitian Jay “Ding” Darling, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) – He’s one of the most famous people Sioux City has ever produced. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and one of America’s pioneering conservationists. And you’ve probably never heard his name.

Jay Norwood Darling is better known as “Dean” Darling. “Dean” was the nickname he gave himself. An abbreviation of his last name.

You can almost see the sparkle in his eyes in an early photo with a hat on his head and a pen in his hand. He drew his first cartoon for a student magazine at Sioux City Central High School.

To save money for college, in 1900 he took a job as a reporter for the Sioux City Journal. But his ability to draw quickly changed his career path! Soon after this, his first cartoon was published.

He moved to Sioux City as a child and developed a love of nature, as you can see from his later wildlife prints.

“There were a lot of cool places to walk along the Missouri River, the Big Sioux River and explore. Go to Stone Park and stuff like that,” said Matt Anderson of the Sioux City Public Museum.

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In 1906, Darling was captured by the Des Moines Register-Leader, where his career took off. His political cartoons were eventually published in nearly 150 U.S. newspapers.

“Today it is difficult to appreciate how outstanding a cartoonist was for a newspaper in those days when it was your main way of getting information about the outside world.”
Anderson emphasized.

Darling won his first Pulitzer Prize for a 1924 cartoon called “In the Good Old U.S.A.,” which shows how people from humble beginnings can achieve success.

One panel depicts how Sioux Sithian Frederick Peterson left home to become a highly respected neurologist whose hobby is helping poor children, and he also helped Dean.

“Like many people who work with their hands, Dean suffered from elbow neuralgia in the early 1920s, which threatened his career. This neurologist helped him,” Anderson said.

His second Pulitzer in 1943 dealt a blow to the federal government, which had produced vast quantities of documents during World War II.

His favorite passions were politics and conservation. He often attacked those who abused nature.

In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Darling to head the newly created U.S. Biological Survey, now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where Darling designed the first federal duck stamp.

This is a stamp that waterfowl hunters must purchase to hunt migratory birds, essentially a hunting license.

For many years, Darling had a winter home on Captiva Island in Florida.

“So he just fell in love with the area because of the wildlife and the environment,” Anderson says. “And there’s a huge population of birds. This is a true high water environment. His fish house is a house on stilts. This is a cool place.”

Thanks to Darling’s efforts and the donation of land by his island neighbors, the federal government purchased the Sanibel Island Migratory Bird Refuge in 1945.

By 1958, Dean Darling became seriously ill. The last of his more than 11,000 editorial cartoons carried a very simple message: “Bye… it’s been wonderful meeting you.”

Darling died in 1962.

Islanders rallied to change the name of the refuge in his honor.

It is the first national wildlife refuge named after a person.

There’s a lot to think about here. Dean Darling drew editorial cartoons on Prohibition, the labor movement, two world wars, the Depression, and the terms of seven presidents. It’s almost surprising that he only won two Pulitzer Prizes!

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