Your TR Source
Vignettes illustrate the comforts of domestic life at home, with the central scene showing a man bathing in a bathtub.
“After Vacation” is typical of the non-political genre cartoons, collections of themed gags that by 1905 appeared roughly once a month in Puck magazine. They provide to later readers superb diaries of everyday life that might otherwise be lost to history.
William II, Emperor of Germany, stands in the middle of a narrow cobblestone street, possibly in Italy (the pope, wearing the papal crown, is walking down the street into the background). He is taking a visiting card labeled “Wilhelm” from a small pouch in his left hand. The French flag is hanging above a door labeled “RF,” on the left, where a man is leaning out a window. Austria appears to be the next door on the left, and other rulers lean out windows on both sides of the street. At William’s feet is a suitcase with labels “William Berlin, Hotel Britain, Polar Star, [and] Morocco.” Caption: “Let me see! Whom shall I call on next?”
German Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow, the former foreign minister who retained much of the diplomatic portfolio under Kaiser Wilhelm II, at this time arranged for the Emperor to undertake overseas trips to enhance the nation’s prestige and international presence. Not all visits were welcome by fellow royals; and some trips were counter-productive, as a leisurely visit to England a few months after this cartoon would prove. (Wilhelm granted a very indiscreet interview to a London newspaper).
Various incidents are shown where a person refuses to perform a task because he or she is a specialist in some other field. The series concludes with two men speaking to each other over the caption, “The only specialists from whom nothing else is expected.” They are Weber and Fields, the German-dialect stage comedians immensely popular at the time.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1903-02-18
A young woman is accompanied by an elderly matron as they depart a summer resort for the return trip to the city for the winter social season. Included is a brief verse by Arthur H. Folwell describing the scene.
The poem by Puck‘s editor Arthur H. Folwell illustrates the contemporary theme, repeated in countless cartoons and humorous observations of the day, of the “Summer Girl” taking to summer resorts, not so much to exercise or relax, but to seek romance and husbands. Even as she leaves the resort, Ehrhart’s “summer girl” (his pretty girls were Puck‘s counterparts to Life Magazine’s Gibson Girls) reflexively reveals petticoats and an ankle, which was relatively daring in 1902.
Two young Irish women talk at a stand selling “Soda Water” next to a busy city street. Caption: Maggie — He’s going ter buy me an autermobile – dat’s wat! / Katie — An autermobile, eh? An’ where’s he goin’ ter git der dough? / Maggie — Well, he’s goin’ ter watch his chance an’ git run over by one, an’ den sue fer damages!
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1902-08-27
Several young women wearing their new Easter fashions stand outside a church. Included is a poem titled “The Easter Girls” by Madeline Bridges.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1902-03-26
President Roosevelt riding in a carriage through a street
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1905
The domestic servant evolves from country housewife to an employed domestic through seven scenes beginning with the barefooted housewife receiving “the summons to the land of the free.” In scene two she is greeted by relatives who presumably coach her in the fine art of choosing her employers, which she does in scene three “with haughty discrimination.” In scenes four and five she fills her leisure time with social activities, such as attending church and enjoying social gatherings at home. The central figure, scene six, shows her as an over-sized and defiant “Kitchen Tyrant” with four well-dressed women, on their knees, pleading with her. The final scene shows her downfall, “a ready and delightful solution of the whole problem; – one that we are all coming to.” It shows a tall skyscraper, “Family Apartment House” offering “more comforts than at home – no more wrangling with servants – meals, laundry work, valets, chambermaids, and all domestic service provided by the management.” In the background is a row of low, brownstone-like walk-ups, “This row of dwellings to let cheap. No reasonable offer refused.”
A frequent theme of cartoons in the 1880s and ’90s was the “servant problem.” It was mostly related to maids and kitchen help, and mostly affected middle-class families. This was still a time when people of modest means strove to have domestic help as a basic part of their households. The “Problem” had several aspects: the difficulty in finding competent, or any, servants; the problems inherent in hiring recent immigrants, especially regarding language and social skills; retention of servants and their frequent demands for independence. Cartoonists hit upon the anomaly of servants ruling the households they were paid to serve.
In a series of vignettes, a rural family arrives in the city to stay at the “Walledoff,” a fashionable hotel [the unsophisticated rural man’s pronunciation of “Waldorf”]. The patriarch of the family repeatedly mistakes each encounter for something grander than its appearance.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1901-01-30
Illustration shows four scenes related to New York City residents: in the upper left, “August in Madison Ave.” showing the well-to-do leaving town to beat the summer heat; in the upper right, “August in Mulligan Alley” showing the working class suffering from the summer heat; in the lower left, “The ‘better element’ in his element” showing wealthy men relaxing in comfort at the shore; and in the lower right, “The ward politician making ‘dives’ popular” showing a local politician handing out free tickets to mothers and children at popular middle class beaches and amusement parks. Caption: Why the “better element” never happens to get a popular vote in New York City.
This cartoon is an example of social commentary by Puck, though it is frankly gentle in the days of Naturalism in literature and exposes of the slums, when Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives excited public controversy. The book by Riis, an ally of Theodore Roosevelt, resulted in reforms and regulations easing the plight of the urban poor. Neither the milieu of the Malefactors of Great Wealth, nor the street urchins, are depicted here in extremis, but the ministrations of political organizations and police groups are lauded.
On the occasion of his recent inauguration, President Roosevelt sends his reflections on the accomplishments of his first term in office and the challenges of his second term, along with a description of the inauguration itself. Secretary of State John Hay gave Roosevelt a ring with a lock of Abraham Lincoln’s hair in it, which he wore while taking the oath of office, sharing his thoughts about Lincoln and how he tries to live up to Lincoln’s example. Roosevelt describes the various groups of people who participated in the inaugural parade, including cowboys, Indians, veterans of several wars, civic organizations, coal miners, farmers, and more. Roosevelt describes current domestic and international challenges. In the English-speaking countries, Roosevelt finds the divisions between rural and city dwellers to be of concern, as well as the dwindling birth rate.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-03-09
Ethel A. Battell asks Theodore Roosevelt to intercede on her behalf to help her get work with the Reclamation Service in the southwest. She wants to be able to move out of the city so that her daughter can have room to play and grow. Battell provides several references for her work.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-03-08
J. W. Petavel has written a book about his belief that the proper practicing of Christianity as a “strenuous” faith will solve many of the social questions and problems of the modern day. He believes his views on the faith and society match Theodore Roosevelt’s, and would like Roosevelt to write a preface of the book. He sends various clippings about the book and his work, and will send the book under separate cover.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-10-15
An automobile driven by a chauffeur speeds down a road, surrounded by newspaper clippings with headlines about numerous traffic accidents involving pedestrians struck by automobiles, including one where a chauffeur was charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 13-year-old boy.
The original artwork for Udo J. Keppler’s double-page cartoon featured actual newspaper clippings pasted to the drawing — twenty-two actual accounts of automobile accidents and fatalities of recent vintage.
A customs officer places a tax stamp on an American heiress. Surrounding vignettes suggest other ways of generating revenue, such as taxing “poodles and other precious pups,” people who tell tall stories, “divorce,” “sidewhiskers,” “amateur elocutionists,” and “rubber plants,” “instead of putting it all over the poor old consumer.” Caption: Some stamp-tax suggestions for raising the wind.
The subject of a federal income tax is almost as old as the Republic itself. The first serious proposals were floated in 1812 as government expenditures rose in the face of a war with England. Similar pressures resulted in a tax on all incomes during the Civil War; imposed in 1862, they were lifted a decade later. The only major Democrat tariff of the late nineteenth century was the Wilson law of 1894, and a tax on incomes was imposed to offset the loss of revenue from lower tariffs.
A priest stands at the pulpit in a cathedral, preaching from the “Holy Ledger.” Beneath his feet is a cut-away of an area labeled “Rentals” and revealing bags of money above the phrase, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The bottom half of the image shows the squalor of poor families living in sections of the city identified as “Filth Lane, Tuberculosis Alley, Bacteria Court, Thug Corner, Squalor Street, [and] Fire Trap.”
The great radical cartoonist Art Young, creator hundreds of effective and famous cartoons over his long career, once called “Holy Trinity” the favorite among his cartoons. The color double-page in Puck was prompted by an article about the Episcopal Church in New York City owning a multitude of tenements. Its clergy, in Young’s powerful Puck cartoon, were in effect slumlords
A bespectacled man wearing a top hat and overcoat stands in the street, holding a book titled “Old Sleuth the Detective.” Near him, young children are reading the newspapers labeled “Daily Scandal Monger,” “Morning Cyclone of Crime,” “Daily Rot, Daily Scooper, [and] Morning Scavenger.” Behind are newsstands labeled “All the Sensation Papers” and “Don’t Fail to Buy the Sunday Slop Bucket,” with headlines such as “How to Poison a Whole City,” “Murder,” and “Crime.” Caption: Dime Novel Writer–And they used to say that my books were bad for young peoples’ morals!
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1897-03-17
Two men, one labeled “Producer,” use a pulley system labeled “U.S. Parcels Post” to ship a package labeled “Direct to Consumer” beyond the reach of a man labeled “Express Co.” straddling a “R. R.” station and a man labeled “Middleman” standing in front of a “Commission Market” to a man labeled “Consumer” and a woman standing at the other end of the pulley system. The consumer in turn sends payment for the goods received by the same system. Caption: What the parcels post would mean to them both.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1911-01-04
In a busy street scene in a city, numerous electric signs advertise cafes, theaters, restaurants, and cigarettes. Also shown are pedestrians on the sidewalks and automobiles on the street.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1914-10-10
People dine at sidewalk cafes and dance at a hotel rooftop cabaret, while lovers stroll in the moonlight at Riverside Park. Raymond Crawford Ewer sketches from life New York 1914. Caption: Hotel-top and other views to show that the stay-at-home New Yorker is not to be pitied.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1914-08-22