Robert Ripley - Life

Life

In 1919 Ripley married Beatrice Roberts. He made his first trip around the world in 1922, delineating a travel journal in installments. This ushered in a new topic for his cartoons: unusual and exotic foreign locales and cultures. Because he took the veracity of his work quite seriously, in 1923, Ripley hired a researcher and linguist named Norbert Pearlroth as a full-time assistant. That same year his feature moved from the New York Globe to the New York Post.

Throughout the 1920s, Ripley continued to broaden the scope of his work and his popularity increased greatly. He published both a travel journal and a guide to the game of handball in 1925. In 1926, became the New York state handball champion and also wrote a book on boxing. With a proven track record as a versatile writer and artist, he attracted the attention of publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst, who managed the King Features Syndicate. In 1929, Hearst was responsible for Believe It or Not! making its syndicated debut in seventeen papers worldwide. With the success of this series assured, Ripley capitalized on his fame by getting the first book collection of his newspaper panel series published.

On November 3, 1929, he drew a panel in his syndicated cartoon saying "Believe It or Not, America has no national anthem." In 1931, John Philip Sousa published his opinion in favor, stating that "it is the spirit of the music that inspires" as much as it is Francis Scott Key's "soul-stirring" words. By a law signed on March 3, 1931 by President Herbert Hoover, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was adopted as the national anthem of the United States.