Hang in there, Baby

Victor Baldwin was a Southern California-based portrait and animal photographer in the 1950s-90s. He and his wife, Jeanne Baldwin, published their work photographing animals in the form of books. Several of these books, such as Little Kitten, Big World (1956) and The Outcast Kitten(1970)  were entirely focused on photographs of cats in humorous situations. This photograph, depicting a Siamese cat named Sassy holding onto a pole in a pose meant to mimic a chin-up, was taken in 1963 and published first in The Outcast Kitten where it was in the book and on the back cover.

The chin-up photograph was immediately popular, with those who enjoyed the book writing to Baldwin requesting a print of the photograph. This popularity inspired Baldwin to produce a poster of the photograph with the added text “Hang in there, Baby” in a contemporary serif typeface. This text served to reinforce the humorous dissonance between the pop-culture image of a cat as an icon of grace and agility and the precarious situation presented in the poster. This type’s comforting and inspiring message  helped to categorize this poster as an early example of a motivational poster, which would become a more popular concept as the 1970s progressed. The poster quickly became popular, spurred both by its easy-to-understand message and a series of lawsuits in which Baldwin protected against copyright infringement. This poster went on to become an iconic element of 1970s pop-culture and became one of the best selling posters of the decade.