Country life

Although President Theodore Roosevelt believes that farmers are better off than before, the increase in their well-being has not kept pace with the nation as a whole. The government has successfully focused resources on crop production but “good crops are of little value to the farmer unless they open the door to a good kind of life on the farm.” To this end, Roosevelt asks Gifford Pinchot if he will serve on a “Commission on Country Life.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-08-10

Marie Turner Harvey trusts Theodore Roosevelt will appreciate the enclosed as it relates to the Country Life Commission.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-09-18

Philip J. Haag sends Theodore Roosevelt a postcard.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-09-11

A huge triple-decker touring vehicle, with “Dining Hall, Kitchen, Servants Hall, High Finance and Recuperation Apartment, State Rooms, Hair Dressing Studio, Gossip Den, Nursery, [and] “to Gymnasium on the roof”, travels down a dirt road in the countryside.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Albert Levering’s detailed and imaginative centerspread cartoon in Puck reprised a theme frequently used by the magazine’s former star Frederick Burr Opper in years past — speculations and projections, like “The Apartment House Of the Future,” “The Street Car Of the Future,” “The Summer Resort Of the Future,” etc.

Two Irishmen talk in the street of a rural community. The son of one is taking music lessons, to the annoyance of the other, as well as the neighbors. Caption: Hogan — I suppose ye’ve heard me lad, Terry? He do be takin’ lissons on th’ clary-o-nit. / Ryan — He might betther be takin’ lissons on the sthame-dhrill. It’ud be more useful t’ him an’ a dom sight more soothin’ t’ the neighbors.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Walter Gallaway was one of Puck‘s cartoonists who virtually never drew a political cartoon or a caricature of a person in the news; he devoted himself to humor cartoons, mostly single-panel, and many with ethnic figures. He also moonlighted during the first years of the century, drawing cartoons and strips (one-shots, not recurring characters) for the Sunday color comic supplement of the New York Herald.

At center, New York City Mayor Seth Low sits in a chair reading from a long list of his “Plans for this Week” to a group of reporters. In the vignettes to the right and left, someone is reading from a similar list of announcements, demands, changes to duties, new automobile laws, or simply stating, as in the case of the “Cuban tariff,” a businessman reads “My policy is greed, deceit, dishonor and broken pledges.” The readings take place in the Police Department, in the home of a henpecked husband, in the boarding house, in a kitchen ruled by a servant, in an automobile stopped before a group of country dwellers, and before a Cuban peasant growing sugarcane.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Seth Low had served two terms as Mayor of Brooklyn before its merger with Greater New York City in 1897, and also as President of Columbia University. In all of his works and writings he was recognized as one of the nation’s prominent reformers. As a Republican and Independent, he was ally of Theodore Roosevelt in municipal politics. In 1902, aided by disorganization and fresh scandals within the Democratic Tammany Hall organization, Low ran for mayor on the Citizens Union and Republican tickets and won an impressive victory. Ehrhart’s cartoon makes light of Low’s top-to-bottom reform of municipal government: open contract bidding, publicity of agencies’ activities, posted salaries of civic employees, bureaucrat accountability, reforms of the Board of Aldermen, and what we today call “transparency.” With two years, Democrats and Tammany Hall reorganized, and Low lost his re-election bid in 1904.

A prim elderly woman admonishes a tramp lying on the ground next to a dirt road on the outskirts of a rural community. Caption: Mrs. Stern — Why don’t you brace up and be a man and take the place in society to which you are entitled? / Languid Lannigan (yawning) — Aw! Ping-pong is sich a bore don’t yer know!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-06-04

A local hunter appears in the foreground, and a visiting hunter from the city in the background asks the local if there is good shooting in the area. The local replies that it depends on who is doing it. Caption: Citiman — There is good shooting around her, isn’t there? / Native — Sure! – Of course it depends on who does it!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1901-11-20

At center, two masked men recklessly drive an automobile down a country road, frightening every man, woman, and beast, and chasing them out of the roadway. Other vignettes depict scenes of summer activities, including swimming at the beach, hunting, fishing, excursion boating, and courting.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Beginning in the mid-1880s, Puck devoted one special issue, and many cartoons and short stories in other issues, to “Mid-Summer” themes. On these pages, politics took a subordinate place to humorous cartoons on social subjects, such as in this double-page spread by Ehrhart.

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.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

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.

A tourist from the city stands on the steps of a railroad passenger car, speaking to an old man and a young boy standing on the platform at a train station in a quiet community known as “Restville.” A man with a heavy beard and smoking a pipe is leaning against the wall of the station. Another man sitting in a chair appears to be asleep. Caption: The Tourist. — Rather quiet here, isn’t it? Leading Citizen (of Restville). — Quiet? – why, say, even the unexpected don’t happen here!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1901-06-26

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.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1901-01-30

At a Sunday school picnic, adults and children are resting and playing, and eating in a rural setting. Included is a poem by Joseph Crosby Lincoln.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1900-08-01

President Roosevelt addresses the farmers of Bangor, Maine, and declares that in the midst of urbanization and industrialization, the countryside is the surest place to find “the old American spirit.” Roosevelt praises farm life and says it allows for a stronger sense of brotherhood and community. He discusses the importance of how to be properly charitable and to not place too much importance on material prosperity.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-08-27

Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary informs F. H. Bausman how he can obtain a copy of the report by the Commission on Country Life.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-11-22

Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary tells J. M. Wingett that he asks many questions and it would take a long letter and many inquiries to answer them all. Roosevelt already has his hands full, but he recommends writing to L. H. Bailey of Cornell University for the information, since he was chairman of the Country Life Commission.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-07-05

President Theodore Roosevelt suggests that Gifford Pinchot and members of the Country Life Commission meet with farmers from across the United States to discuss matters associated with rural living. It is imperative, says Roosevelt, that “the men who actually live on the soil should feel a sense of ownership in the Commission.” Roosevelt suggests a list of topics for these meetings to help the Commission ascertain the conditions of the open country.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-11-09

Charles J. Dillon asks Theodore Roosevelt to write a foreword for his upcoming textbook on industrial journalism. He feels that Roosevelt’s endorsement will help it sell and that it is a topic he would be interested in. Dillon is teaching a course on the subject at the Kansas Agricultural College.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-06

J. H. Hetley was involved in a previous Commission on Country Life while Theodore Roosevelt was president. He is looking for more information on country life, as he studies the “Rural School Problem,” but has been unsuccessful. He hopes Roosevelt might be able to point him in the right direction. 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-05-22

Wallace Batchelder received Theodore Roosevelt’s letter setting June 7 as the date for his visit to White River Junction, Vermont. Batchelder informs Frank Harper that, ideally, the subject of Roosevelt’s address would be related to “co-operation in country life.” He asks for advice on ensuring Roosevelt’s security without annoying him.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-04-25