Ehrhart, S. D. (Samuel D.), approximately 1862-1937

Uncle Sam, as the “Pied Piper,” plays a pipe labeled “Lax Immigration Laws” and leads a horde of rats labeled “Jail Bird, Murderer, Thief, Criminal, Crook, Kidnapper, Incendiary, Assassin, Convict, Bandit, Fire Brand, White Slaver, [and] Degenerate.” Some of the rats carry signs that read “Black Hand” showing a black hand print. In the background, rulers from “France, Russia, Germany, Italy, Hungary/Austria, Turkey, [and] Greece,” along with citizens of these countries, are cheering the fleeing rats.

Comments and Context

The decade between 1900 and 1910 saw the largest numbers of immigrants to the United States, surpassing the times of Irish Potato Famine, the German Liberal Revolution of 1848, America’s Industrial Revolution, and the Land Rushes of free farmland in the American heartland.

Cartoonist S. D. Ehrhart took note of the influx, and called “foolish” the policy that allowed immigrants with health and legal challenges to seemingly be unvetted. Such was not the case, and neither was nativism the reason for old American stock and second-generation citizens to raise objections.

A man labeled “Graft Politics” pays, with his left hand, a tramp labeled “Floater” at the end of a line of tramps outside a polling place, while with his right hand he attempts to keep a woman from listening to “women’s suffrage talk” because her “place is in the home, caring for the children.” Vignettes show women and children working in sweatshops and factories, living in tenement housing, and children taking care of younger children and being arrested. Caption: “No; they might disturb the existing order of things.”

Comments and Context

A full dozen years before women would be able to vote in presidential elections (some states already had equal-rights statutes), Puck went on the record for women’s suffrage. It was not the first time the magazine endorsed the concept, but S. D. Ehrhart’s cartoon was simple and forceful.

Cartoon signs and symbols were replete: vignettes showed women in subservient positions in society; an iconic chain surrounded the image of a beleaguered mother in a tenement; a chain of disreputable men accepted bribes outside a polling place; the man representing “graft politics” looked, on first glance, respectable. Moreover, images depicted men in unsavory activities.

Theodore Roosevelt departs from the White House, leaving an infant labeled “My Policies,” wearing the same spectacles as Roosevelt and holding a small stick, in the care of William H. Taft as the maid. William Loeb, as the butler, is carrying Roosevelt’s big stick.

Comments and Context

Cartoonist S. D. Ehrhart commemorated Theodore Roosevelt’s retirement from the presidency, and William H. Taft’s assumption of duties, with an accurate but somehow jaundiced view of the situation, for instance the depiction of President Taft as a mere nanny.

Roosevelt indeed referred to “My Policies,” his record of accomplishments and visions for America’s future, in a paternalistic manner. Taft — portrayed in the cartoon as a nursemaid — is dismissed in this scenario; however he had accepted Roosevelt’s imprimatur, blessings, and virtual demands for fealty when he was advanced as Roosevelt’s successor. At least these were the universal expectations.

Vignettes show a “nervous congressman” suspecting everyone he meets to be a spy investigating him. Everyone he sees (a female companion, a “waiter,” “his constituents,” a “friend,” and a woman pushing an infant in a stroller) is carrying handguns and handcuffs, and he refuses the return of a loan for fear that it is “marked money.” A picture of Marcus Alonzo Hanna hangs on the wall of his congressional office. At night a demon that looks like Theodore Roosevelt torments his sleep.

Comments and Context

The United States Secret Service, created by detective Allen Pinkerton during the Civil War, initially was formed with the charge to protect the president. Its role expanded to investigate land frauds and track counterfeit money, and other random duties.

In 1909 it was a topic in public discourse because, funded by taxpayers, its duties expanded further to protect the president-elect for the first time. This cartoon was drawn while William H. Taft prepared to assume the presidency in March of 1909.

Vignettes depict transcontinental journeys by various modes of transportation. Circus performers tumble and roll their way across the country, a street railroad car from New York City arrives at the Rocky Mountains, a child travels in a pedal car with his nurse following by rail, a man golfs his way from coast to coast, members of a country club drink their way from roadhouse to roadhouse, waiters carry a tray of food from the mayor of New York City to the mayor of Seattle, an African American vaudeville couple dances across the continent, and two tramps hitch a ride on a railroad.

Comments and Context

S. D. Ehrhart’s theme-and-variation cartoon vignettes is a seeming fantasy — logical extensions of the idea of cross-country marathons. It deals with humorous exaggeration, but scarcely is fantasy; it was based in fact.

As early as 1897 there was a Yellow Kid transcontinental bicycle race sponsored by the newspaper chain of William Randolph Hearst, and by the middle of the next decade there was indeed a “cross-continent mania.” The American versions probably were spurred by French and English marathons (surviving today in such events as the annual Tour de France).

This vignette cartoon depicts the tendency of Americans to overdo everything, such as hosting “large receptions in small houses,” women’s fashions and their “elevation and advancement idea,” “Arctic exploration,” the “forcing process with our children’s educations,” and the “Bicycle Boom.” Caption: A few random examples of the general tendency towards overdoing things, viz.: overdone fashions, overdone county fair exhibits, overdone high buildings, overdone Sunday editions, etc., etc.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1896-01-15

A minister with a “Bible” in his coat pocket rides a bicycle, in a race with another minister who is not far behind. A husband and wife are observing from a sidewalk in the background. Caption: Mrs. Goodwin–Dear me! there goes our pastor on his wheel; how devoted he is to his charge! He can’t get to church quick enough! / Mr. Goodwin–Oh, that isn’t it; he has a race on with old Deacon Aimen!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1896-01-08

This vignette cartoon depicts aspects of the cycling craze, such as “beneficial” or “injurious” to one’s health, problems with trying to dress appropriately and being excluded if not, the concern that “invalids, babies, and blind people” may soon take up cycling, and yet, despite the crowds, “the boom goes on.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-10-30

A wily, destitute, European noble, with papers extending from his pockets labeled “Laundry Bill, Hotel Bill, Livery Bill, [and] Tailor Bill,” seeks a fortune among young American heiresses, as he “hypnotizes” them with the crown of his nobility and they, in their weakened state, kneel before him offering bags of money, to the chagrin of young, well-to-do, American men.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-10-02

A female figure with wings rises from the flames of summer romances that are burning out as the season comes to an end. She leaves behind many broken-hearted men on the beach at a summer resort. Caption: She rises gayly from the ashes of her season’s conquests, to continue her deadly work as the “Winter Girl” of the near future.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-09-18

Uncle Sam sits back in a chair on the beach next to America’s Cup festooned with laurel branches and the names of American yachts and the year they won the Cup, “America 1851, Magic 1870, Columbia 1871, Sappho 1874, Madeleine 1876, Mischief 1881, Puritan 1885, Mayflower 1886, Volunte[er] 1887, [and] Vigilant 1893.” There is a telescope on the ground beside him. A British sailor, wearing a hat with ribbon labeled “Valkyrie III,” is standing before Uncle Sam, looking at the Cup. Caption: Uncle Sam–Wa-al, old feller, you’ve got another chance to look at it, anyhow, even if you can’t win it!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-09-04

In this vignette cartoon, Uncle Sam stands at the center placing money in a box labeled, “To Save the Heathen of Foreign Lands.” Around him are vignettes showing American pastimes of pigeon shooting, cockfighting, boxing, and turkey-grabbing, as well as a lynching. Caption: And yet Uncle Sam is always giving money to “save the heathen.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-09-08

American soldiers sit around a campfire listening as one tells a story through verse of getting kissed by his girlfriend just before boarding the train. The poem is authored by Edwin L. Sabin.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1898-08-10

A woman labeled “Democratic Party” peers through an opening labeled “Jeffersonian Principles” in an underground shelter, while a tornado rages overhead with dark clouds labeled “Indignation, Dissatisfaction, Defeat, [and] Hard Times.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-05-02

The symbolic “Columbia” stands between an American sailor and an American soldier, during the Spanish-American War.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1898-07-20

A group of dejected young women sit at the beach with a mannequin labeled “Cost of Living.” The mannequin is dressed in the symbols of a lady’s needs, including white gloves, a fan, and the tools of home-making, as well as two tags labeled “Rent” and “Taxes.” Young men are standing nearby, pondering the group of women, but fearing the chaperone. Caption: “If you haven’t any money, you needn’t come around.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1909-07-21

Two governesses, each with a child, visit in the park. One woman is having trouble controlling a little boy who is frightened of a policeman standing in the background. Caption: Miss Dolan–Oi’m a-goin’ to lave me place! / Miss O’Toole–Don’t yer loike th’ choild? / Miss Dolan–Yis; but he’s thot afeared av a policemon thot Oi can’t get him near wan!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-01-10

An angel labeled “National Credit” with wings labeled “Sound Financial Policy” and “Repeal of Sherman Silver Law” rises above the flames of the wreck of the “U.S. Treasury.” Among the wreckage lie William McKinley bowled over by the “McKinley Bill,” John Sherman being crushed under the weight of large silver coins, Green B. Raum sitting in an empty safe labeled “U.S. Treasury,” with Benjamin Harrison and Charles Foster hanging onto the safe, and William A. Peffer among the lumber on the left.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1893-09-27

William II, the German Emperor, wearing a crown and a regal robe with a ribbon that states “Sons of Cold Water,” sits at a table with other military figures. Count Leo von Caprivi pours a glass of “Ice Water” for William to drink. The others are drinking wine or champagne. Caption: His actions are praiseworthy, but his speeches at banquets indicate his great need of a strict adherence to cold water when he dines out.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-10-03

A man and a woman wearing knickers and bloomers stand with a bicycle between them, shaking hands. To the right and left are examples of nineteenth century fashion.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-08-07