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

A “Labor Agitator” sits in the center with strings attached to marionettes or puppets from all walks of life and social classes. The vignettes around the central figure show these puppets in actual life situations as union leaders and labor agitators. Depicted are a “Walking Delegate” who is “willin’ ter arbitrate” with a school principal on behalf of his son, and “The Progressive Prisoner,” a “Labor Agitator,” an “Infant Class Agitator,” and “Madame President” of the “Marriageable Women’s Union,” as well as “The District President” of the “Cook Ladies’ Union,” also school-ground bullies who prevent children from getting an education.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1903-01-14

A laborer stands at center holding a rifle labeled “Law and Order” and a National Guard uniform labeled “Patriotism” which he is offering to Uncle Sam who is standing on the left with his hands behind his back. Standing on the right, behind the laborer, is a man labeled “Labor Agitator,” holding a whip that spells out the word “Expulsion.” He makes it clear to the laborer that he must choose between the union and service to the government, arguments raised as leverage in labor’s attempts to negotiate with the Department of the Army. Caption: The Labor Agitator — Give dem soldier clothes up! Yer can’t serve me and him, too!

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Comments and Context

From its inception until the 1903 Efficiency in the Militia Act of 1903 (the reference-point of Ehrhart’s cartoon), the United States had had an ambiguous policy regarding state militias and the United States Army. Governors could choose to meld their state militias with the Army, or not, in random fashion, perhaps depending on local opinion and politics. New England governors who opposed the War of 1812, for instance, refused to send troops to assist the Army. This is the reason that Theodore Roosevelt assembled the Rough Riders, the First New York Volunteer Regiment; in times of need, Washington authorized volunteer regiments of limited duration, across the country. The 1903 act, also called the Dick Act after its sponsor Representative Charles Dick (R-Oh), and heavily pushed by Secretary of War Elihu Root, enabled the creation of National Guard units in every state, outlined their duties and restrictions (until a 1908 amendment, they could not be deployed overseas), and guaranteed funding by a schedule. This act also enabled the creation, and mandated funding, of training camps like Plattsburgh before America’s declaration of war in 1917. The immediate point of this cartoon is the short-lived attempts of union organizers to have their members retain union rights and contract provisions while serving in Guard units; or that union members be exempt from serving in Guard deployments. Such efforts were unsuccessful.

Two young women, holding golf clubs, discuss one’s relationship with a male friend in the context of a round of golf, punning on the word “paresis.” Caption: Gladys — Is Ferdy suffering from paresis? / Ethel — Suffering? Dear me, no! Why, he thinks he’s a golf champion!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-04-30

Columbia [the symbol of the United States] stands on the seashore with a small child who is wearing a hat labeled “Cuba.” Columbia has dropped a ribbon labeled “U.S. Protectorate” that is wrapped around the young girl’s waist, enabling her to walk without assistance.

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Comments and Context

Four years after the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War, on May 20, 1902, Cuba “seceded” from the United States and declared itself a republic. It did not gain complete freedom from the United States, however. In its constitution were provisions that granted the United States the right to intervene in certain internal affairs; and have a role in its foreign relations and economic affairs. Eventually, under the Platt Amendment, the United States was granted a lease for a military base at Guantanamo Bay. American concessions were guaranteed percentages of United States sugar imports; guarantees that increased through the years. Only in 1934 did Cuba gain a fuller measure of political and diplomatic freedom.

The recent craze for playing ping pong is causing business partners to neglect their work, ladies’ clubs to turn away from their normal leisure pursuits, infants to be pitted against one another, elderly couples to put years of wedded bliss on the line, and domestic servants to refuse to give up the dining table, so they, like everyone else, can play ping pong. Included is a humorous verse by Edwin L. Sabin.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-05-28

A prim elderly woman admonishes a tramp lying on the ground next to a dirt road on the outskirts of a rural community. Caption: Mrs. Stern — Why don’t you brace up and be a man and take the place in society to which you are entitled? / Languid Lannigan (yawning) — Aw! Ping-pong is sich a bore don’t yer know!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-06-04

At the procession for the coronation of Edward VII, King of Great Britain, many of those participating in the pageantry are wearing medieval costume. Caption: Barnum was not the only man who knew that the public likes to be humbugged.

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Comments and Context

Due to exigencies of publishing deadlines, this cartoon depicts an event that did not take place, at least at its scheduled time. Ehrhart’s critique of the excessive pomp that was planned for the Coronation of England’s King Edward VII was a valid observation, and part of one of Great Britain’s strangest ceremonies. The former Prince of Wales was 59 years old and his mother Queen Victoria had been on throne for a seemingly interminable 64 years. The prince was, famously, overweight and a playboy. The Queen’s Golden and Diamond jubilees had been rather lackluster, so ostentatious celebrations were anticipated, with royalty from around the world, potentates from England’s far-flung empire, performers of all sorts, just as cartoonist Ehrhart anticipated. However, two days prior to the coronation, the future Edward VII took ill and needed abdominal surgery; the coronation was postponed. Commoners and a staff of thousands were given sweets and thanks in consolation. When the coronation did occur in August, it was in many respects a comedy of errors: a crotchety Archbishop of Canterbury who died four months later, crowns falling from royal heads, botched protocol, and stage-whispers among the royal family.

At center, a man looks out a garret window, daydreaming or musing on the life of the farmer. Vignettes around him offer humorous views of summer activities, including courtship, neighborly visiting, and swimming.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-07-16

A woman lying in a hammock daydreams of engaging in various social and sport activities with handsome young men. She imagines herself shooting, sailing, dancing, sitting on a beach, golfing, playing ping-pong and badminton, and fencing.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-07-30

At center, New York City Mayor Seth Low sits in a chair reading from a long list of his “Plans for this Week” to a group of reporters. In the vignettes to the right and left, someone is reading from a similar list of announcements, demands, changes to duties, new automobile laws, or simply stating, as in the case of the “Cuban tariff,” a businessman reads “My policy is greed, deceit, dishonor and broken pledges.” The readings take place in the Police Department, in the home of a henpecked husband, in the boarding house, in a kitchen ruled by a servant, in an automobile stopped before a group of country dwellers, and before a Cuban peasant growing sugarcane.

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Comments and Context

Seth Low had served two terms as Mayor of Brooklyn before its merger with Greater New York City in 1897, and also as President of Columbia University. In all of his works and writings he was recognized as one of the nation’s prominent reformers. As a Republican and Independent, he was ally of Theodore Roosevelt in municipal politics. In 1902, aided by disorganization and fresh scandals within the Democratic Tammany Hall organization, Low ran for mayor on the Citizens Union and Republican tickets and won an impressive victory. Ehrhart’s cartoon makes light of Low’s top-to-bottom reform of municipal government: open contract bidding, publicity of agencies’ activities, posted salaries of civic employees, bureaucrat accountability, reforms of the Board of Aldermen, and what we today call “transparency.” With two years, Democrats and Tammany Hall reorganized, and Low lost his re-election bid in 1904.

Alfonso XIII, the young King of Spain, holds on to the robe of Pope Leo XIII. His mother, María Cristina, stands next to him on the viewing stand as young women are presented to him as potential brides. Caption: Little Alfonso is next in line to have a wife picked out for him.

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Comments and Context

Alfonso XIII was born after his father’s death and assumed the throne of Spain on his sixteenth birthday. Perhaps unable to surrender its wartime bias against Spain, almost every element of Ehrhart’s cartoon is demeaning. The new king is depicted as a virtual child, the women waiting to be chosen for him all are flirtatious, his mother assertive, and the Pope appears evil and lascivious. Cartoonist Ehrhart was one of Puck‘s “answers” to Charles Dana Gibson of Life Magazine, a master at depicting beautiful and self-assured women.

Throngs of people with wads of money in their hands make their way to the gambling casino at Saratoga, New York. Uncle Sam stands to the right, thumbs in his suspenders, boasting about having the largest gambling facility in the world. Caption: Uncle Sam — Biggest trade, biggest trusts, biggest buildings, biggest machinery, and now I’ve got the biggest gambling joint. Well, say!

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Comments and Context

Saratoga, upper New York state’s site of health-water springs and high society’s genteel racing track, was transformed by the addition of casinos and gaming parlors. Cartoonist Ehrhart cast a sarcastic eye on the questionable “improvements,” depicting Uncle Sam as a sharpie drawing every element of the public to its gates.

A young woman is accompanied by an elderly matron as they depart a summer resort for the return trip to the city for the winter social season. Included is a brief verse by Arthur H. Folwell describing the scene.

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Comments and Context

The poem by Puck‘s editor Arthur H. Folwell illustrates the contemporary theme, repeated in countless cartoons and humorous observations of the day, of the “Summer Girl” taking to summer resorts, not so much to exercise or relax, but to seek romance and husbands. Even as she leaves the resort, Ehrhart’s “summer girl” (his pretty girls were Puck‘s counterparts to Life Magazine’s Gibson Girls) reflexively reveals petticoats and an ankle, which was relatively daring in 1902.

Puck stands next to a statue of Peter Cooper in front of the Cooper Union building, holding a paper that states “Puck suggests a few outlets for overflowing incomes.” Crowds of working class men and women and disadvantaged youths in need of proper education fill the sides, while in the center throngs of people stream toward the entrances to the Cooper Union building.

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Comments and Context

Inventor and philanthropist Peter Cooper established Cooper Union in 1859 as a school, totally or substantially tuition-free, primarily to teach trades and industrial arts. In an impressive building on New York City’s Astor Place, in its first year it hosted the most important speech of Abraham Lincoln’s pre-presidential canvass; and can boast of many prominent graduates through the years. As it expanded, a daytime engineering college and a four-year undergraduate program both were established in 1902, the date of Ehrhart’s cartoon. He implicitly criticizes Andrew Carnegie, whose eponymous libraries, in the cartoon’s view, did not serve common workers. However, Carnegie himself contributed greatly to Cooper Union during 1902. Generally, Puck was celebrating a New York institution on the occasion of its general reputation and its contemporary expansion. Cooper Union, by the way, is less than five minute’s walk from the Puck Building, which still sits on the corner of Houston and Mulberry Streets in Manhattan.

An elderly couple embarks on a leisurely grand tour of Europe, stopping in Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, and Egypt, before returning home exhausted and in poor health from the activity and stress of travel.

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Comments and Context

Ehrhart’s theme and cartoon vignettes echoed the idea behind the very successful cartoon series in Life Magazine by Charles Dana Gibson only two years before, “The Education of Mr. Pipp.” In that series of cartoons, Mr. Pipp also had to deal with a flirtatious wife and three beautiful and eligible daughters as they “did the Tour” — traveled around Europe. 

A series of vignettes illustrate how women’s social life impacts their domestic life, their problems with servants, the troubles neglected children get into, and how home life can be improved by curtailing their social life. The heading over the main scene states: Grand Federation of the Housewives of America for the Protection against incompetence, insolence, & dominance of the Servant Girl in the household.

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Comments and Context

Puck delivers two blows against common themes of the day: Feminism that resulted in what critics then called “The Emancipated Woman” is depicted by cartoonist Ehrhart as producing unruly children and troubled marriages, and, Puck suggests, if women returned to their household duties, the scourge of unsophisticated and domineering immigrant servants would end.

An actress and her manager sit in an office. Caption: The Star — I’ve had my diamonds stolen three times and been married four. Now, what else can I do? / Manager — You might take lessons in acting!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-03-19

Several young women wearing their new Easter fashions stand outside a church. Included is a poem titled “The Easter Girls” by Madeline Bridges.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-03-26

An attractive young woman talks to a handsome young man at the theater. They are discussing the benefits of marriage. Caption: Miss Blossom — But a married man always has some one to share his sorrows, you know! / Jack Bachelor — Not always; – every married man can’t afford to keep a valet and a butler.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-04-02

At center, two masked men recklessly drive an automobile down a country road, frightening every man, woman, and beast, and chasing them out of the roadway. Other vignettes depict scenes of summer activities, including swimming at the beach, hunting, fishing, excursion boating, and courting.

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Comments and Context

Beginning in the mid-1880s, Puck devoted one special issue, and many cartoons and short stories in other issues, to “Mid-Summer” themes. On these pages, politics took a subordinate place to humorous cartoons on social subjects, such as in this double-page spread by Ehrhart.