@thehighmagazine on Instagram: "The history of American animation, or cartoons, began in the early 1900s with silent short films shown before movies. Pioneers like Winsor McCay, whose Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) introduced character personality and hand-drawn animation, laid the groundwork. Early studios such as Bray Productions and Fleischer Studios developed key techniques like cel animation, which became the industry standard. The Golden Age of animation from the 1930s to the 1950s saw major b