Christmas

Uncle Sam’s Christmas tree is about to topple over onto him because there are too many heavy ornaments near the top, including a red devil labeled “Politician,” a cannon labeled “Sherman Law,” a jack-in-the-box labeled “Wickersham,” a basket filled with food labeled “Cost of Living,” a parrot labeled “Woman Suffrage,” a ball labeled “Increased Taxes,” a large book labeled “Over-Legislation,” another ball with a “$” and the face of big business, an automobile labeled “Extravagance,” a large ball labeled “Bill” with the face of President Taft, and an angel labeled “Teddy.” Caption: Uncle Sam’s Christmas crash.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-12-20

Snow falls on a beautiful woman wearing a large hat, holding mistletoe.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-12-06

Theodore Roosevelt thanks Anna Roosevelt Cowles for the wooden bowl and wishes they could have spent time together. He describes a lovely Christmas with the grandchildren.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1914-12-29

Theodore Roosevelt thanks Anna Roosevelt Cowles for her Christmas gift of a bowl.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1912-12-26

Theodore Roosevelt replies to Anna Roosevelt Cowles about Elisha Ely Garrison, a good man who was in his regiment. Garrison wrote to Roosevelt recently because he is interested in financial legislation and hoped Roosevelt would discuss it with him. Roosevelt says that Garrison is a real friend and a Yale man; Roosevelt always listens to him when he visits and sends him a follow-up letter of acknowledgement when he sends a manuscript or pamphlet. Roosevelt shares that he and Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt laughed when they read Cowles’ account of the Frederika Bremer celebration and about William Sheffield Cowles Jr. playing football to work off the extra treats at Christmas.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1911-12-29

Theodore Roosevelt thanks Anna Roosevelt Cowles for the Christmas gifts of a lamp and a hearth brush, saying that he especially wanted the lamp and it has already added to his comfort. He misses her and wishes he could talk with her and William Sheffield Cowles about his complicated political situation. He sends his regards to William Sheffield Cowles, Jr., understanding that he has had a difficult time but he knows it would be harder if he were taken away now. Roosevelt is certain young Sheffield will win out because he has the right stuff in him.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1911-12-27

Theodore Roosevelt has just returned from a holiday visit with Anna Roosevelt Cowles, William Sheffield Cowles, and William Sheffield Cowles Jr. He writes to Anna to tell her how much he enjoyed his time with them and their guests, and he wishes that they could be together at Christmas. Roosevelt is still frustrated with a law that prohibits William from running for legislative office.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1910-12-23

Theodore Roosevelt thanks Anna Roosevelt Cowles for her Christmas gift and describes the most enjoyable holiday he spent with his children and grandchildren.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1916-12-26

Theodore Roosevelt writes to his sister Anna Roosevelt Cowles about his health, Christmas Day activities, and grandchildren.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1918-12-28

The “G.O.P.” elephant holds a tambourine labeled “Stand Patism” and hands out free baskets labeled “Tariff Graft” containing a turkey, duck, or chicken to ragged figures labeled “Coal Trust, Steel Trust, [and] Wool Trust.” A long line of trust figures await their turn. Joseph Gurney Cannon, Nelson W. Aldrich, Joseph Benson Foraker, and Leslie M. Shaw appear in women’s clothing as the “Republican Salvation Army” singers, singing “There are no flies on Dingley.” A man labeled “Protected Monopoly” stands in the foreground, at the edge of the platform. Caption: Distribution of Christmas goodies by the Republican Salvation Army.

Comments and Context

Politics occasionally did intrude in holiday issues of Puck as this centerspread cartoon by J. S. Pughe attests. The Salvation Army was a relatively new force in 1906, but there had been urban missions and soup kitchens in lower Manhattan for generations. Pughe’s venue is a larger auditorium than might have been typical of a Salvationist Christmas food charity, but other stereotypes are there: music with a tambourine, female singers with bonnets sharing their sermons in song.

The cartoonist’s attacks are seen in the graphic subtleties: an obscure “small dealer” — that is, an individual entrepreneur — squeezed between two angry trust magnates; a fancy spat and shoe peeking from under a mogul’s pant-leg; similar kid glove and diamond jewelry on the “downtrodden”; and the hymn praising Dingley. Three leading Republican senators, and Treasury Secretary Leslie M. Shaw bleat the gospel of high tariffs.

A large crowd of people rush forward to the “Exchange Desk,” bearing Christmas gifts which they wish to exchange.

Comments and Context

“Many unhappy returns.” The subtext of L. M. Glackens’ post-Christmas cover cartoon in Puck is how America had changed in, say, one short decade. Ten years prior, America was trying to crawl out from a devastating depression punctuated by labor strikes and strife, and from a turbulent presidential election enlivened by fears of radicalism and a Populist movement.

By 1906, after a war and a presidential assassination, the United States found equilibrium, and enjoyed an unprecedented prosperity under President Roosevelt. It was a time of record immigration, but a simultaneous shift of urbanites to suburbs; and new industries generally absorbed the new workforce.

Illustration shows rows of toys, dolls, teddy bears, soldiers and drummers, and trees.

Comments and Context

The annual Christmas issue of Puck in 1906 was given to Frank A. Nankivell for its cover design. In recent years the holiday issues of the magazine were given to decorative or poster-like images. It made the special themes more widely attractive to readers and advertisers, especially downplaying politics and partisanship. These issues usually were more pages — often 32 or 48 pages instead of Puck‘s usual 16 — and carried more color cartoons and advertising.

Nankivell was born in Australia, where he drew cartoons for various publications before he moved to Japan, where he drew for the Tokio Puck (no relation to Joseph Keppler’s New York Puck), then drawing for newspapers and magazines in San Francisco and finally Puck in New York.

In the interior of a frontier cabin, a long table is set for a Christmas turkey dinner. Around the table are seated several people, some of whom are surprised to discover an arrow stuck in the turkey, shot by a Native standing outside the open door of the cabin.

Comments and Context

In Puck Magazine’s holiday issues — Easter, Midsummer, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas — the publishers generally yielded space routinely reserved for political cartoons to thematic, seasonal, or purely humorous subjects.

The 1906 Christmas number was no exception, and Puck‘s Austrian import Carl Hassmann was counted on to provide superb-poster like artwork in addition to clever ideas. This center-spread cartoon, in fact, is not very clever or funny — a Native American startles Colonial revelers at dinner with an arrow aimed at the holiday turkey — but does tell us something about the times of the cartoon’s creation. The Pilgrims are rather more up-to-date than their 1600s versions, especially the women, and the Indian is not depicted as a savage but rather a friendly prankster.

Santa Claus, labeled “G.O.P.,” reaches to place the “Star of Hope” on top of a Christmas tree trimmed with lemons, marble hearts, a stuffed bear “From Teddy,” two “Little Big Sticks” and a “Big Stick,” a ball of “Promises,” and three balls labeled “Gas, Guff, [and] Wind.” On a nearby table is Joseph Cannon as a “Joe in the Box,” a “Home made frosted cake from Uncle Joe’s Pantry,” and a book of “Fairy Tales by Uncle Sam.”

Comments and Context

J. S. Pughe’s cover cartoon directly addresses a crisis in America’s handling of the Philippine Islands as an American territory, during an important moment of policymaking. The matters at hand were important to the Filipinos, of course: trade, tariffs, and economic sovereignty.

To the American public, especially since most of the bloody insurrection was quelled — largely by President Roosevelt’s amnesty and promises of self-determination — questions concerning the Philippines had become a matter of great indifference. Governor-General William H. Taft, returning to the United States and engaging in policy speeches, remarked that the sure way to clear a hall of reporters and attentive listeners was to mention the Philippines.

Theodore Roosevelt describes to his sister Anna Roosevelt Cowles how the family spent Christmas. He lists the presents they bought for the children on behalf of Anna. He thinks it is “idiotic” for the Whites to raise their son Jack abroad and criticizes his Police Commissioner colleagues Andrew D. Parker and Frederick Dent Grant.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1896-12-26

Theodore Roosevelt informs his sister Anna Roosevelt he turned down New York City Mayor-elect William Lafayette Strong’s offer of becoming Street Cleaning Commissioner. After much thought, Roosevelt wants to complete the work he started as a Civil Service Commissioner. He urges Anna to take care of herself and describes Christmas Day activities.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1894-12-26

Eleven-year-old Theodore Roosevelt continues chronicling his family trip through Europe in this diary. First entry is titled, “The continuation of my Journel [sic] in France December 3rd 1869.” There are entries from across Western Europe including Naples, Rome, and Caserta. Lists at end of volume: “Accounts my money,” “Hotel index,” “Plan of hotels,” and “Letters received.”

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1869-1870

Theodore Roosevelt sends Christmas greetings. He had been enjoying playing with his grandchildren. He mentions Archibald “Archie” B. Roosevelt’s letter and how gloomy it was. Roosevelt shares his frustration with President Woodrow Wilson’s handling of the war.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1917-12-25

Theodore Roosevelt wishes a merry Christmas to all the men of the American army and navy at home and abroad.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1917-11-29

Theodore Roosevelt thanks his sister Anna for a “magnificent” book that she sent him for Christmas. He also thanks her for the gifts she sent the children.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1892-12-25