Lodging-houses

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 large group of well-dressed ladies are gathered for the “First National Congress for the Advancement of the Interests of Boarding-House Keepers.” A woman is speaking at a podium before a large audience of women. Disgruntled tenants are seated in the “Boarder’s Gallery” in the balcony. It is “Resolved that boarders have no rights that we are bound to respect.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-04-07

Print shows an Irishman confronting Uncle Sam in a boarding house filled with laborers, immigrants from several countries who are attempting to sleep. The “Frenchman, Japanese, Negro, Russian, Italian,” and “German” sleep peacefully. The “Irishman” kicks up a row. He has thrown such bricks as “The Chinese must go,” “Recall Lowell,” and “Irish independence” at Uncle Sam and the female figure of liberty standing on the left. He disturbs a “Chinese” man and an “Englishman,” who are in the berths next to him. Caption: Uncle Sam – “Look here, you, everybody else is quiet and peaceable, and you’re all the time a-kicking up a row!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-06-07

Allyn F. Hanks replies to Carleton Putnam’s letter requesting information on travel arrangements for his impending trip to the Badlands for research for his Roosevelt biography. Hanks recommends lodging and writes of other arrangements he has made.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1952-07-25