Edmund Valtman papers

Edmund Valtman (May 31, 1914 - January 12, 2005), born in Tallinn, Estonia, later attended the gymnasium and Art School in Tallinn. First cartoon published at the age of 15. Worked as draftsman between 1940 and 1941in Viljandi, southern Estonia, where he experienced both the first occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union in 1940 and the arrival of the German Army in 1941. Until his departure from Tallinn on September 21, 1944, fleeing the returning Red Army, he worked as a cartoonist for the newspaper EESTI SONA. The following years were spent in displaced persons camps in Germany, mainly in Geislingen. Edmund Valtman immigrated to the United States in 1949, first working with his wife, Helmi, for their sponsor family in Little Silver, New Jersey. In 1951, his wife secured a job with the insurance industry and he obtained employment as cartoonist in Hartford, Connecticut, where Edmund Valtman became editorial cartoonist for the HARTFORD TIMES until his retirement in 1975. In 1962, Edmund Valtman won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartoons.