Arthur "Art" Henry Young was born near Orangeville, Illinois and was raised in Monroe, Wisconsin. He attended the Chicago Academy of Design beginning in 1884 and studied under J. H. Vanderpoel. During this time he also worked at a number of Chicago newspapers as a cartoonist such as Daily News, Tribune, and Evening Mail.
Young furthered his studies at the Art Students League of New York, the Academie Julian in Paris, and Cooper Union. He worked for a number of magazines and papers such as Chicago Inter-Ocean, Puck, Judge, Life, and the New York evening Journal.
Young is best known as a cartoonist, co-editor, and contributer for the radical socialist monthly called The Masses. He worked there from 1911 until 1918. Young came into legal trouble for this magazine and in 1917 was charged along with several other contributers under the Espoinage Act for "conspiracy to obstruct enlistment." The first trial ended in a hung jury and the second in an acquittal. Young became a comic figure in both trials, often falling asleep or making jokes during the prosecution's arguments.
