The story
On March 31, 1913, a new comic strip appeared in The New York Globe. It was called Keeping Up with the Joneses, and it was drawn by a young cartoonist named Arthur “Pop” Momand.
Momand drew from life. He and his wife had lived in Cedarhurst, on Long Island, where by his own account they lived far beyond their means, trying to keep pace with what he called “the well-to-do class.” He decided the struggle was funny enough to share.
The strip followed the McGinis family—Aloysius, Clarice, their daughter Julie and their maid—as they strained to match the neighbors. The Joneses themselves were often mentioned but never shown. They were simply always a step ahead.
The strip ran in papers for 25 years, until 1938. By then its title had become an everyday phrase for the pressure to buy, show and spend just because others do.
