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Postcard featuring campfire scene of four bears with caption “and Teddy’s sure to get you if you don’t watch out.” Multiple sets of eyes lurk in the dark woods background. “I wonder if you are going to Uncle Percy’s to-day. Mamma.”
1906-12-19
Two military scenes. On top Colonel Theodore Roosevelt reviews papers with a young man. On the bottom, young men talk over a campfire, with their gear within reach. Text on the front says “Indianapolis. The Lion and the Mouse is great. Going skating in a few minutes. VATSUNG.” Reverse has an address for J. E. May of Columbus, Indiana, and a postmark from Indianapolis, Indiana.
1907-03-14
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.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1898-08-10
An encampment of the Democrat/Populist presidential candidate and his followers dances around a campfire labeled “Repudiation.” Depicted are, from left, “Peffer, Jerry Simpson, Teller, Vest, Watson, Bryan, Sewall, Sen. J. P. Jones, Jones, Altgeld, Bland, [and] Stewart.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1896-11-04
President Taft, as a cowboy, sits alone next to a campfire and a chuck wagon labeled “Stand-Pat or Bust.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1910-05-18
Print shows the British Lion attempting to put out the flames of a campfire labeled “South African War.” In the background are two figures labeled “Russia” and “France,” holding large pincers, who are pondering the idea of nipping the tail of the British Lion while it is occupied on South Africa.
Caption: The Friendly Foes–Oh! What a lovely chance to pull its tail!
A young man, in late winter, huddles over a small fire on a beach while a young woman swims offshore.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1914-02-21
A photograph of Grace Green Alexander cooking over a campfire with an unidentified man. Taken while on vacation in and around Yellowstone Park.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1908-1909
President Roosevelt, wearing buckskin and a raccoon hat, sits by a campfire at night, holding a knife, his rifle by his side. In the shadows beyond the light of the fire are a snake labeled “Mormonism,” a bull labeled “Beef Trust,” a strange bird labeled “Merger Bird,” a large fuel tank labeled “Oil Trust” with a snake-like appendage extending from the front with the head of John D. Rockefeller, and a bat labeled “Castro.” A tent is behind Roosevelt, on the right.
As most good political and editorial cartoons do, the drawings in Puck refer to contemporary issues and current events. They are remarkably fruitful for researchers of later times, but sometimes are so local and so timely as to occasionally deal in obscure controversies and forgotten figures.
The concept of J. S. Pughe’s cartoon is obvious: President Roosevelt, depicted as he famously was, a hunter and camper, is encircled by menacing creatures and spirits representing his political challenges. But Roosevelt, sitting alone by the campfire with his hunting knife is scarcely menaced by them. Rather the opposite.
William Jennings Bryan and David B. Hill roast a bird over a campfire outside the “Dem. Homestead.” Caption: Dismal Dave and Weary William join in celebrating.
Democratic leaders William Jennings Bryan, in the middle of his career as a perennial presidential candidate,and former governor and senator from New York, David Bennett Hill, the perennial aspirant for the office, experience a lean Thanksgiving. The two were virtually the only Democrats of national stature as the 1904 elections approached, and in cartoonist Keppler’s view have little to be thankful for. Indeed the Democrats in 1904 would nominate a nonentity, Judge Alton Brooks Parker, and lost the election by record margins.
William Jennings Bryan holds a large bellows labeled “Bryanism,” which he is using to fan the flames of a small campfire labeled “Imperialism.” On the left side of the fire is Carl Schurz and on the right, kneeling on the ground, is Adlai E. Stevenson. They blow on the fire as well, to no effect.
Published days before the 1900 presidential election, this cartoon depicts the frustration of Democratic candidate Bryan, his running mate Adlai Stevenson, and the prominent German-American reformer Carl Schurz. At first glance, per the label, they might be thought to attempt a revival of imperialism, but imperialism fails to catch fire as a hot issue. In fact the opposition to the new territorial possessions of the United States, after the Spanish-American War, was the only important new plank in Bryan’s platform since 1896. And the public proved either indifferent to the objections… or quite in favor of America’s new place in the world.
Theodore Roosevelt thanks Paul Joseph Dashiell for sending the pouch and its contents, noting that “Billy Hofer was one of our best friends. I value him just as you did and have the same memories as you have of the Wyoming camp fires and of Billy Hofer.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-18
Charles Horton asks Theodore Roosevelt if he can donate any items or a check to the John Corning Post, of the Grand Army of the Republic Posts, “Old Fashion Camp Fire” event that is based off conditions of the American Civil War.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-19