Cliff Sterrett

Who was Cliff Sterrett?

Clifford Sterrett, was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of the comic strip Polly and Her Pals.

Born in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where his father was a druggist, Cliff Sterrett was of Scandinavian ancestry. His mother died when he was two; Cliff and his younger brother Paul were then raised by a maiden aunt, Sallie Johnson, after their father moved to Seattle.

With a letter of introduction from a local Episcopal clergyman, the 18-year-old Sterrett moved to New York, where he enrolled in the Chase Art School for two years of study. He signed on at the New York Herald in 1904 as a staff art assistant and submitted cartoons to the New York Telegram, embarking on his first comic strips: Ventriloquial Vag, Merry Ha-Ha, When a Man’s Married, Before and After and For This We Have Daughters. Leaving the Telegram, he drew illustrations for The New York Times.