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Vignettes show panels from comic strips featuring Foxy Grandpa, Alphonse and Gaston, Happy Hooligan and the donkey Maud, Buster Brown, and the Katzenjammer Kids, around a central panel with William Randolph Hearst, a candidate in the election for governor of New York, sitting on Maud, with clones of the “comic people” behind him.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1906-10-31
A large mean-looking man labeled “Coal Trust,” patterned after Charles Dickens’ character “Bill Sikes” from the novel Oliver Twist, holds a club labeled “Control of Rail Roads” in his right hand and looks down at a cowering man/dog figure labeled “Independent Mine Owner.” On a table on the left is a bottle labeled “Rebates.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1906-03-07
A man described as “America’s greatest Pecksniff,” an allusion to Dickens’ character Seth Pecksniff in the novel Martin Chuzzlewit, stands, full-length, facing slightly right, holding a paper that states “The Widow & Orphan Pump” which shows a pump spewing money into a trough. Likenesses of Pecksniff appear in the background as a bust statue, a painting, and a silhouette. Caption: “There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen; all is peace; a holy calm pervades me.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1905-08-02
A jolly Santa Claus sits in a large chair at center with toys at his feet. A family with two little girls, possibly twins, and several children and servants approach him, smiling, on the right. Many nursery rhyme characters approach on the left, looking sad and distressed.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1904-12-07
William Randolph Hearst hosts a dinner for a gathering of cartoon characters at the White House. On the left, a dinosaur is eating a portrait of President Roosevelt. Caption: The inaugural dinner at the White House.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1904-06-29
President Roosevelt agrees with Kermit Roosevelt about the book Martin Chuzzlewit, and criticizes Charles Dickens’s character and inability to see the positive traits of America and Americans, which led to such great men as Abraham Lincoln. He concedes, however, that some of the negative characteristics that Dickens’s characters portray do persist in some Americans, including Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, William Randolph Hearst, and John D. Rockefeller. Roosevelt enjoyed a recent visit from Kermit’s older brother, Theodore Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-02-29
Postcard showing the Cent Shop in The House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts. The room is decorated to resemble Hepzibah’s Shop in The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and sells gingerbread elephants and “Jim Crows.”
1911-08-19
President Roosevelt leads a group on horseback, brandishing a whip and charging. Following him are several figures from history and legend including a Roman warrior, the drunken Tam O’Shanter, Paul Revere, Don Quixote, and Sancho Panza. Also following the charge, in silhouette, are Ichabod Crane from Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a member of the Pony Express, and Lady Godiva. All the riders except Roosevelt are weary or exhausted.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-02-03
Benjamin F. Butler, as Topsy from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, stands in front of an old woman labeled “Dem.” who is holding a switch labeled “Discipline” behind her back. In the background, on the floor, are broken dishes labeled “Corruption, Spoils System, The Machine, [and] Old Notions,” also a framed portrait of Andrew Jackson labeled “Jacksonian Principles,” and over a dresser is a cracked mirror labeled “Old Reflections on B.B.” The bottom of one of Topsy’s shoes is labeled “Independence.” Caption: Topsy “I ‘spect you can’t do nuffin’ with me, Miss – I’se used to whippin’. Golly! I’se so wicked!!”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1883-05-23
A large group of Puck stock cartoon figures labeled “The Common People” stand in a wooded area, gathered around a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Caption: Lincoln — Are these the Common People I said God must have loved because He made so many of them?
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1910-01-05
Fagin from the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, labeled “Corporation Lawyer,” watches as his protégé, Oliver Twist, labeled “Public Service Corporation,” picks the pocket of Uncle Sam on a city sidewalk. Caption: Instructor in the art of stealing and getting away with it.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1907-10-02
A woman labeled “Wall Street,” appearing as Little Bo Peep, has pulled all the petals, labeled “Tight Money” and “Easy Money,” off a paper flower. The center of the flower, on the ground among the petals, shows a medallion that states “In Cortelyou We Trust.” Her bodice is labeled “Stock Exchange.” George B. Cortelyou, dressed as an Elizabethan suitor, is standing behind her. They are embracing as he holds aloft a diamond ring labeled “Treasury Aid.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1907-04-17
John D. Rockefeller appears as Uriah Heep from the Dickens novel David Copperfield. Two logbooks on the floor at his feet are titled “Competitor Business” and “Rebate Schedules,” and hanging on the wall is a paper that states “The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth.” Caption: “Men, I want to tell you that systematic saving and self-denial, with a good deal of hard work, form the foundation for every large fortune. That has been my experience.”–John D. Rockefeller
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1907-08-07
A woman labeled “Wall Street” appears as a nursery rhyme figure, possibly Little Bo Peep, pulling petals off a paper flower that are labeled “Tight Money” and “Easy Money” as she says “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.” The center of the flower shows a medallion that states “In Shaw We Trust,” but with a line drawn through “Shaw.” The woman’s bodice is labeled “Stock Exchange.” George B. Cortelyou, dressed as an Elizabethan suitor, is looking over her shoulder.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1907-02-06
The ghostly figure of a manic-looking man, labeled “Judge Lynch” and carrying a book labeled “Lynch Law” and a lighted torch, hovers over a procession of people. The procession is led by three solid citizens followed by farmers, unruly elements, and finally a long line of regular citizens including women, who look back at a small column of smoke in the distance – presumably a lynching. One of the unruly men shoots at a dog. (“Judge Lynch” was the personification of the practice, frequently found in the South, of executing African Americans suspected of crimes without the benefit of trial. In the second decade of the Twentieth Century, Progressives advocated various reforms designed to circumvent the state governments viewed as the tools of entrenched interests. The Recall was intended to allow the citizenry to directly vote officials out of office. The cartoonist suggests that this first be used to abolish the practice of lynching.)
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1912-02-21