Cupid (Roman deity)

Cupid appears on horseback, shooting two handguns into the air outside the North Portico of the White House, on the occasion of the wedding of Alice Lee Roosevelt, President Roosevelt’s daughter, and Nicholas Longworth. Caption: February 17th, 1906.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Theodore Roosevelt had such personal magnetism that cartoonist Carl Hassmann transformed Cupid himself into a cowboy for a day. That day saw the wedding of “Princess” Alice Lee Roosevelt and a Republican congressman from Ohio, Nicholas Longworth, a future Speaker of the House. The Longworth Office Building on Capitol Hill is named in his honor. The pair had known each other socially for several years, but a romance developed on a diplomatic trip to Japan and the Philippines in 1905 with Secretary of War William Howard Taft.

At center a valentine card features President Roosevelt as Cupid. Around the outside are other valentines featuring two European leaders, American industrial and political figures, a Russian admiral, a writer identified only as “Tom,” and a Wall Street con artist.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Whether it was a cartoonist’s creative crutch every year, or readers’ happy expectations, the easy formula of imaginary Valentine’s Day cards for political figures was a frequent feature in Puck and other satirical weeklies of the day. Frederick Burr Opper drew many of these over his years at Puck in the 1880s and ’90s.

At center, a young woman asks Cupid about his flower garden where all the blossoms have male and female faces. Six vignettes show scenes from country and country club life that generally relate to relations between the sexes. A poem called “Cupidculture” is included.

comments and context

Comments and Context

A double-page spread by Puck‘s counterpart of Charles Dana Gibson (creator of the Gibson Girl stylish cartoons in Life Magazine) at the time. These are seasonal gags in an issue dated in the middle of April. The poem in the central cartoon was written by Arthur H. Folwell, the editor of the magazine for more than a dozen years, later on the staff of the New York Tribune and writer for The New Yorker, and script writer for the Mr. and Mrs. comic strip.

A pensive bachelor sits in front of a fireplace on Christmas Eve. The figure of Cupid stands before an open suitcase, its contents strewn about the floor, as a butler nervously attends to the clothes. The bachelor’s distress arises from his holiday solitude.

comments and context

Comments and Context

A popular theme of cartoonists in these times was the contrast of convivial lifestyles of unmarried society types and loneliness at holiday times. Rose O’Neill explored this theme no less than fellow cartoonists, but this pioneer female artist also specialized in the subjects of children, her creations The Kewpies, illustrations for romance novels, and, later in life erotic sculptures. She was also a writer and poet. Born in the Ozarks, at the time of this cartoon she was married to the society lion and inventor Gray Latham. Soon after this cartoon’s publication she divorced Latham and married Puck‘s editor, the popular humorist Harry Leon Wilson.

Former president Benjamin Harrison holds a bouquet of flowers and has a floral garland around his neck that Cupid has used to lasso him. In a poem, Cupid says, “I’ll help the boom of the happy groom, as his party’s Valentine.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1896-02-12

Puck, at top center, manipulates an electric bow-shooting device, which sends arrows toward couples in the surrounding vignettes, where they are sitting beneath trees on the shores of a lake, riding bicycles, canoeing, swimming, boating, playing tennis and golf, and riding in a carriage. Caption: An electric arrow-shooting battery would beat the old-time bow, and […] the hearts of forty times as many victims, with neatness and despatch.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1896-08-19

This vignette cartoon depicts changes to folklore, fairy tales, courtship, and punishment, that will result from the cycling craze. Vignettes include witches riding bicycles instead of brooms, Father Time riding a bicycle, Cupid running over victims with a bicycle instead of shooting arrows at them, fairies on bicycles, and a cyclist’s nightmare in Hell.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-07-21

Cupid writes notes that state “Two can live as cheaply as one.” Some are addressed to “Mr. Huggard,” “Mr. Younglove,” and “Mr. Spoony.” Watching him are a doctor, a nurse, a butcher, a grocer, a milkman, a maid, and a businessman.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-03-30

A woman stands against a wall with many arrows stuck around her. Cupid tells a man standing nearby that he is doing his best. Caption: Cupid — I’m doing the best I can, old man, but if I make one hit in twenty these days I’m lucky.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1914-02-14

Eros (or Cupid) labeled “Arbitration” and Psyche labeled “Peace” cover their heads with a cloth labeled “Peace Congress” and flee from a storm labeled “War.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-11-22

President Taft, as a blindfolded cupid labeled “Party Solidarity,” wears a quiver labeled “Harmony” and stands against a backdrop of a large red heart. He is holding strings attached to four birds labeled “Root, Wickersham, Knox, [and] Aldrich,” and two strings attached to arrows that have been shot through hearts labeled “Insurgent” and “Reactionary.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-02-09

A young couple stand in an embrace in a wooded area during autumn, with Cupid perched on a branch holding a cluster of red leaves over their heads. Caption: And yet how many there are who run by Cupid’s block-signal.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-10-08

A woman holds Cupid in one arm while plucking and arranging Cupid’s feathers in her hair and admiring herself in a mirror held by a faun who is mostly hidden by tall grasses.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-04-26