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Colorized postcard showing a multi-colored rock formation, Cupid’s Cave in Yellowstone National Park. The number designation on the front indicates the postcard is part of a series.
Unknown
Colorized postcard showing two men standing in a chamber in a cave, Cave of the Winds.
1903
This postcard shows a group of people clustered around a cave mouth by the side of a river. The high cliff walls of the area are covered in heavy vegetation.
In Charles C. Myers’s own words, “Another scene of the tropical vegitation [sic] in the vicinity of Guantanamo.”
Forest Inspector Peavy reports on the Pinnacles Rocks in California, giving a description of their physical characteristics and the surrounding area. Peavy recommends setting aside the area as a National Monument and having a mineralogist from the Geological Survey assess nearby mineral claims.
Pinnacles National Park
1907-09-09
John Campbell Greenway reviews the proposed itinerary for Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Arizona.
1913-06-20
Members of the 47th Congress carry on their shoulders large money bags labeled “Surplus $150,000,000” and “Appropriations,” and a sign that states, “No large appropriations for the Navy whilst Robeson is mixed up with it.” At the lead are three men, one dressed in armor labeled “Folger” carrying a sword labeled “Trust” and a shield labeled “Integrity,” another carrying a large ledger labeled “Chandler Navy Department,” and the third carrying a paper that states “Sen. Harris’s Exposure of Robeson.” John Sherman and John A. Logan are among the congressmen that follow. They are walking past George M. Robeson as an ogre sitting on a pile of skeletal remains of ships with skulls as figureheads and labeled “U.S.N.,” at the entrance to a cave labeled “Naval Committee.” Robeson is biting his fingernails. A notice at the entrance to the cave states, “$180,000,000 squandered and stolen during Robeson’s management of the Navy 1868-76.” Caption: “…He is, by reason of age, also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave’s mouth, grinning at Appropriations as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1882-05-03
Jay Gould appears as a giant holding a large club labeled “Monopoly,” sitting on rocks, gleefully watching a line of downtrodden people entering a cave labeled “Western Union Telegraph Company – All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here.” On the horizon, the sun is labeled “Strike.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1883-08-29
Vignettes show messages sent from various cities to philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, along with the scenic postcard views each is requesting: a mountain for Chicago, caves in Philadelphia (where the sun is too bright), a river connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific Ocean, a fountain of beer for Milwaukee, a sun in Pittsburgh (where the smog is too thick for the natural sun to penetrate), a “Palm Beach” oasis for the Eskimos, and a “natural bridge” crossing the East River into Brooklyn, New York. Caption: His gift of a lake to Princeton suggests other deficiencies of nature which Carnegie may supply.
This double-page cartoon by L. M. Glackens is an example of Puck‘s increasing reliance of humorous current-event news commentaries, with vignettes surrounding a major theme.
In this cartoon Andrew Carnegie is the focus, or rather his philanthropies are. In 1901 Carnegie sold his interests in steel manufacturing, making him the richest man in America at the time and, accounting for inflation and other economic factors, perhaps the richest American of all time. He declared his intention to give away vast portions of his wealth to charities, causes, and institutions, and 1907 he was in full swing.
Puck directs a large floodlight to illuminate a cave. Charles H. Dietrich, Joseph R. Burton, and J. Edward Addicks shy away from the light. Pennsylvania governor Samuel W. Pennypacker, as a court jester, holds up a large sheet of paper labeled “Press Gag Law.” A man running to the right holds a paper labeled “R.R. Rebates.” Another man, possibly John D. Rockefeller, stands next to containers labeled “Paper Trust, Oil Trust, [and] Gas Trust,” and a diminutive figure, possibly New York State Senator Thomas F. Grady, stands behind Pennypacker, holding up a paper labeled “Anti-Cartoon Bill.” An octopus labeled “Mormonism” is visible at the entrance to the cave on the left.
The main point of Udo J. Keppler’s cartoon — the origin of Puck‘s pushback — is the infamous “Anti-Cartoon” legislation proposed by Pennsylvania Governor Samuel Pennypacker, passed as the Salus-Grady Act in 1903, and kept on the books until the end of Pennypacker’s term, but never enforced. The law was supported by Pennypacker and followed the unsuccessful passage of an earlier bill sponsored by Republican Representative Frederick Taylor Pusey. That bill, on which the subsequent law was modeled, would have outlawed “any cartoon or caricature or picture portraying, describing or representing any person, either by distortion, innuendo or otherwise, in the form or likeness of beast, bird, fish, insect, or other unhuman [sic] animal, thereby tending to expose such person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule.”
Cartoonist Charles Nelan, formerly of the New York Herald, had been depicting the former Philadelphia judge Pennypacker as a parrot, repeating the words of thoughts of state Republican boss Matthew S. Quay. The cartoons appeared in the Republican (but anti-Quay) daily, the Philadelphia North American.
Theodore Clay Northcott sent an album of photographs depicting the Luray Caverns, which he asks William Loeb to present to President Roosevelt and his family. He is unsure if Roosevelt has visited the caves during his many travels. Northcott believes they are impressive creations of nature, comparable to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. The caverns are convenient to Roosevelt’s Virginia estate, and the community would be honored should he visit.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-11-13