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Puck, v. 57, no. 1469

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Dispossessed

Dispossessed

A depressed old man wearing formal clothing sits on the sidewalk on small railroad cars labeled “Street Railways.” In his pocket is a paper labeled “Expiring Franchises” and protruding from a bag another paper labeled “Leases.” A bundle at his feet is labeled “Boodle.” Mayor of Chicago, Edward F. Dunne, is standing in the background with a broom.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This brilliant cartoon by Joseph Keppler Junior — in composition, simplicity, and humor the kind of work that enabled some readers to forget his cartoonist father — would be dispositive if published two years later. That is, the reform mayor of Chicago, Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne, is shown with the broom of reform and a crooked political boss sadly confronts his disenfranchisement from control of municipal utilities, fares, and contracts.

The diversions of high society

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.