Your TR Source

Puck, v. 52, no. 1338

Search by Collection Search by Keyword Search by Creator Search by Recipient Search by Subject Search by Resource Type Search by Production Method Search by Publication

Search by Date Range

From: To:

Clear Filters

2 Results

View:

Display per page Sort by

A dangerous bubble

J. P. Morgan, caricatured as a little boy and labeled “Trust Promoter,” blows a bubble labeled “Inflated Values” using “Trust Water” through a pipe labeled “Stock Exchange.”

Comments and Context

As J. P. Morgan expanded his financial empire around this time by purchasing companies and combining them (“trusts”) or arranging vertical organization of whole industries (controlling every step of operations from, say, mining to refining to manufacturing to shipping on land and sea). As he also increasingly controlled or influenced banks, lending, and monetary instruments, he became able to inflate or “water” (weaken) stock prices according to his needs of the moment. Cartoonist Pughe, despite failing to hit the mark with a spot-on caricature of Morgan, depicted this situation — a growing crisis in the economy and financial system, in fact — perfectly. Morgan’s methods helped him acquire U. S. Steel from Andrew Carnegie, attracted the intervention of the government in the Northern Securities case, and in part precipitated the Panic of 1907. Ironically, it was Morgan who was recruited to rescue the economy from that brief crisis; the cartoon’s implication was to be realized — the bubble burst — five years later.

Peter Cooper’s example, which our mulit-millionaire philanthropists might follow with good results

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.

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.