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Florida woman dies of shock

Florida woman dies of shock

Maria Adelaide Coombs died recently, with her death being attributed to a series of shocking events, including the recent death of her sister, Ellen Elizabeth Pierce. In addition to Pierce’s death, Coombs’s house was recently destroyed by fire, as well as her husband’s lumber company. Her husband, James N. Coombs, is now reported to be in feeble health as well.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-03-20

Burning the barn to be rid of the vermin

Burning the barn to be rid of the vermin

President Roosevelt holds a “big fire stick” as he watches the “national prosperity” barn burn from “The Roosevelt Panic” fire. A variety of rats rush out: “abuses,” “errors,” “rebates,” “unfair methods,” and “bank looting.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist W. A. Rogers, in the Democratic New York Herald, addressed the current Wall Street Panic in a way that surely must have been discussed by voters and bankers, yet oddly was infrequently charged in opposition cartoons. Rogers’s opinion is that President Roosevelt’s reforms — of trusts, of banking abuses, of corporate corruption — precipitated the financial crisis.

Letter from Howard Eaton to William Wingate Sewall

Letter from Howard Eaton to William Wingate Sewall

The weather has been fair recently but previous “sharp weather” killed many cattle and “everybody is blue as a whetstone.” At least the losses should stop the big herds from Texas. Medora, Dakota Territory, is “very dead.” A. T. Packard lost everything in a fire and moved back east. The saloon also burnt down and Joseph A. Ferris’s store had a close call. Howard Eaton is glad that William Wingate Sewall is well and he wishes he could join Sewall for some “hunting, fishing, eating apples and drinking cider.”

Collection

State Historical Society of North Dakota

Creation Date

1887-02-26

She’s all right

She’s all right

An angel labeled “National Credit” with wings labeled “Sound Financial Policy” and “Repeal of Sherman Silver Law” rises above the flames of the wreck of the “U.S. Treasury.” Among the wreckage lie William McKinley bowled over by the “McKinley Bill,” John Sherman being crushed under the weight of large silver coins, Green B. Raum sitting in an empty safe labeled “U.S. Treasury,” with Benjamin Harrison and Charles Foster hanging onto the safe, and William A. Peffer among the lumber on the left.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1893-09-27

Their only hope is rain

Their only hope is rain

Pope Pius X and Cardinal Merry del Val attempt to put out a fire labeled “Revolt Against the Vatican throughout Southern Europe” with bellows labeled “Intolerance” and “Infallibility.” Rain clouds labeled “The Diplomacy of Leo” approach from the right, beneath the spirit of Pope Leo XIII. Caption: They can’t put out a fire with things that won’t put a fire out.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-09-21

Gambling with death

Gambling with death

At center, a capitalist sits on money bags labeled “Insurance Money” and leans against several papers labeled “New Policy.” He is gambling with the Grim Reaper, while all around them disasters are happening. A panic-stricken crowd flees a burning theater, a hotel and a tenement building are on fire, a side-wheeler steam ship has exploded, an ocean liner sinks, and a railroad train has crashed. At each of these disasters is a notice that states “Heavily Insured.” Caption: Too Enterprising American Capitalist – Keep up the game! I can lose nothing – I’m heavily insured.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-01-24

The political Sodom and Gomorrah are doomed to destruction

The political Sodom and Gomorrah are doomed to destruction

Print shows an angel labeled “New Party” with wings labeled “Tariff-Reform” and “Anti-Monopoly” leading two small orphan children labeled “Political Honesty” and “Political Wisdom” to safety, away from the fires, ignited by lightning labeled “Public Condemnation,” that are consuming “Republican Sodom” and “Democratic Gomorrah.” Caption: But peradventure the New Party will save these two little orphans from the burning and bring them up for us.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-05-10

Our government farm — President Cleveland finds an effectual protection against the twenty-five-year locusts

Our government farm — President Cleveland finds an effectual protection against the twenty-five-year locusts

President Cleveland stands directly behind a wall of flames labeled “Civil Service Reform.” Behind him, working on the “Government Farm,” are members of his cabinet: William C. Endicott with a hoe, Lucius Q. C. Lamar kneeling before a newly planted tree, Thomas F. Bayard working on a tree labeled “State Department,” Daniel Manning holding a pot labeled “Treasury,” Augustus H. Garland with a shovel, William C. Whitney adding supports to a tree labeled “Navy Department,” and William F. Vilas with a watering can. In the foreground, locusts driven back by the smoke and overcome by the fumes lie on the ground and are about to be consumed by the flames. The locusts include “Kelly, Dugro, Voorhees, Blackburn, McLean, Dana, Butler, H. O. Thompson, Chenowith, Higgins, [and] Aquila Jones.” Two that seem unaffected are labeled “Hendricks” carrying a banner that states “To the Victors belong the Spoils” and “McLoughlin” [sic].

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-09-02

“Away with that life-net!”

“Away with that life-net!”

A raging fire in a building billows dark smoke labeled “Disease.” People are trying to escape by climbing to the edge and jumping into a safety net labeled “Vivisectional Research Life-Net” held by fire fighters. Other fire fighters stream water labeled “Knowledge” on to the flames. A man with a hatchet labeled “Legislation” is about to chop the water hose into pieces, as other citizens attempt to pull the safety net away. Caption: The anti-vivisectionists to the fire-fighting doctors.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-03-22

One year after

One year after

An old and haggard “Justice” sits in a chair on a rock in the East River. Cobwebs have grown over her sword, scales, and an “Indictment.” In the background, the steamship General Slocum is engulfed in flames. (It burned on June 15, 1904, with a loss of over 1,000 lives.) Caption: “Slocum? Slocum? Where have I heard that name?”

Comments and Context

This front-page cartoon is a brutal and stark presentation of the fact that the East River fire and sinking of the excursion boat the General Slocum — a maritime accident still recorded as one of worst disasters in New York City and United States history — had gone relatively neglected by investigators and responsible agencies. The public was properly outraged at the time of the sinking, but many properly thought that justice lagged.

The cover cartoon marks the first appearance in Puck of Carl (sometimes spelled Karl) Hassmann. Like several of Puck‘s cartoonists through the years, Hassmann was born in Vienna (where he died also, after living in the United States and drawing for the magazine until 1914) and brought a fine-arts, painterly sensibility to his work.

A criminal combine not confined to Chicago

A criminal combine not confined to Chicago

On the left, a theater manager is bribing an inspector during an inspection of fire prevention equipment, while the specter of the Grim Reaper hovers above. On the right, a female figure labeled “Public opinion” holds three diminutive men labeled “Politician, Manager, [and] Inspector” and points toward the remains of a theater following a fire.

Comments and Context

The context of this cartoon, with artist Ehrhart being as forceful as he could be, is not named… but was clear to every reader: the recent Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago. Still regarded as one America’s most devastating disasters, the fire on December 30, 1903, less than a month previous, claimed more than 600 lives. It was a fire that spread quickly — a broken arc light igniting the muslin curtain — and the nation learned of burned bodies, closed exits, and bodies of panicked patrons crushed sometimes 10-deep in aisles and doorways.

Puck, Life, and other publications had been attacking Broadway’s Theater Trust, for issues like ticket scalping and questionable morals on stage — and shoddy constructions of sets and theaters in general. Fire hazards as illustrated by the Iroquois Fire changed the discussion, however. Ehrhart’s cartoon was the opening salvo in Puck‘s subsequent crusade on the issue of fire safety. One of many reforms — or at least a prominent move to reassure the public — was to manufacture theater curtains of asbestos, and for years afterward, would assert the fact with the emblazoned word ASBESTOS on stage curtains.

Fire protection wanted

Fire protection wanted

The Democratic Party platform is in flames with a donkey labeled “Democratic Party” rising from the flames as the mythological phoenix. Eleven Democratic Party members have gathered around the fire to supplicate the supernatural being. Caption: The Democratic Phoenix. — If they’d just keep that Bryan boy from playing around me with matches I wouldn’t have to do this stunt every four years.

Comments and Context

The caption of Keppler’s cartoon is cynical, sarcastic, and true. The Democratic Party had been for years its own worst enemy, in electoral terms. Some of the leading Democratic politicians and journalists praying for the scruffy Phoenix to rise include former cabinet member William C. Whitney, Senator John T Morgan of Alabama, U.S. Representative Bourke Cochran, former Governor David Bennett Hill of New York, Senator Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, and Henry Watterson, Editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. 

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs