The diversions of high society

During an intermission or after a “Comic Opera at Mrs. Van Varick-Shadd’s,” a large crowd of men and women wearing formal evening clothes look with chagrin at three women wearing short red dresses, who have secured the attentions of several young men. A painted scene in the background shows nude women cavorting at the seaside.

comments and context

Comments and Context

One of Puck‘s social crusades, increasingly in the new century, was skewering the upper class — not for its excesses nor frivolity nor shallowness, but for its malignities: divorce, corruption, and scandal. Other publications like the cartoon weekly Life made similar criticism, but not as scathing, largely in Life‘s case because its editors and cartoonist Charles Dana Gibson (creator of the Gibson Girl and society drawings) were members of high society.

These new thematic preoccupations were birthed in roughly measure by the growing decadence among America’s rich, and the spirit of the times; after the turn of the century, American editors and writers, and some politicians, developed Social Consciences. It was a time of muckraking about business; Naturalism in literature and Expressionism in art — noticing the underbelly of American life; and political reform manifested by insurgency and progressivism.

The hard approbation of Albert Levering’s cartoon might have continued the crusade inspired by the recent wild party, almost an orgy, hosted by the Equitable Life heir James Hazen Hyde. Its own nature, and the responses of critics like Puck and Levering, were confirmed only a year later by one of the great scandals in American history, the murder of society architect Stanford White.

White was one of the nation’s most acclaimed architects (he had designed the Puck Pavilion at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair), and was a noted playboy. Evelyn Nesbit was a stunning model — posing for Charles Dana Gibson, among others — whose affairs under the nose of her husband, Pittsburgh trust magnate Harry K. Thaw, continually filled the gossip columns. One evening in 1906 White and Nesbit were dining on the rooftop restaurant of Madison Square Garden. Thaw was watching them — apparently a frequent activity — until he approached White and shot him three times, killing him.

The trial was spectacularly lurid — President Roosevelt discussed banning its transcripts, publication, or carriage by the mails — and resulted in a hung jury (which had been sequestered, the first such arrangement in American history); and the second, Thaw was judged insane. His prison confinement was luxurious, and eventually he was released. Nesbit herself continued to model, appear in movies, and marry a second time, also ending in divorce.

Such were the values of standards of the rich — in Roosevelt’s term, the social side of the Malefactors of Great Wealth — that incited Puck‘s harsh treatment.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1905-04-26

Creator(s)

Levering, Albert, 1869-1929

Period

U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)

Repository

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Page Count

1

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation