Ottendorfer, Oswald, 1826-1900

William Jennings Bryan stands in the stirrups of his mount, a donkey labeled “Democracy,” directing the honor guard led by Adlai E. Stevenson, and including Henry R. Towne, Joseph Pulitzer, and Carl Schurz carrying a large flag with a portrait of Emilio Aguinaldo under the heading “The George Washington of the Philippines.” Also included are Oswald Ottendorfer, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, William Bourke Cockran, John Peter Altgeld, and William Sulzer.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Emilio Aguinaldo’s revolutionary campaigns for Filipino independence from Spain began in the 1890s, variously as a guerilla and conventional armed insurrection, through the Spanish-American War, ultimately with and against the victorious American liberators. As a rebel leader his forces sustained and committed atrocities. He was captured and then released by President Theodore Roosevelt as part of the United States’ general amnesty, a putative end of hostilities. Aguinaldo became a hero to his countrymen and a symbol for the cause of American anti-imperialists. Of William Jennings Bryan’s ragtag “army” on this political issue, their professions provide a hint of the American movement’s constituents: Stevenson was Bryan’s running mate, committed to the Democrat party plank; Pulitzer, Schurz, Ottendorfer, and Godkin were editors and publishers; Towne was an industrialst (Yale locks); Bouke Cochran a politician and orator of unorthodox consistency; Altgeld the radical Governor of Illinois (famous for partiality to the Haymarket bombers); Sulzer a New York politcian who eventually became Governor, only to be impeached. Cartoonist Pughe clearly considered the leadership of Bryan (on an undersized donkey) and the number and prowess of the “guard” to be targets of ridicule.

A huge Uncle Sam gets a new outfit made at the “McKinley and Company National Tailors” with President William McKinley taking the measurements. Carl Schurz, Joseph Pulitzer, and Oswald Ottendorfer stand inside the entrance to the shop and Schurz is offering Uncle Sam a spoonful of “Anti-Expansion Policy” medicine, a bottle of which each is carrying. On the right are bolts of cloth labeled “Enlightened Foreign Policy” and “Rational Expansion.” The strips on Uncle Sam’s trousers are labeled “Texas, Louisiana Purchase, Alaska, Florida, California, Hawaii, [and] Porto Rico.” Caption: The Antis. — Here, take a dose of this anti-fat and get slim again! Uncle Sam. — No, Sonny!, I never did take any of that stuff, and I’m too old to begin!

comments and context

Comments and Context

Lose weight or be measured for new clothes? The three men offering Uncle Sam reducing serums are Carl Schurz, a liberal Republican who moved to the United States in 1848, was named a Union General by Lincoln, and supported Horace Greeley, Grover Cleveland, and other reformers; Oswald Ottendorfer of the German-language New York Staats-Zeitung newspaper and head of the Anti-Imperialist League, and Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World.

David B. Hill labeled “Hill-ism,” Richard Croker as the Tammany Tiger labeled “Croker-ism,” and Roswell P. Flower, wearing a tall stove-pipe hat, labeled “Flower-ism,” stand on “Condemned Row” in the “Prison of Public Condemnation.” They are watching a group of men, on the left, construct a guillotine labeled “Reform Movement.” Puck is standing on the left with “Parkhurst, Grace, Lexow, Godkin, Ottendorfer, [and] Goff,” who is posting a notice on the wall of the prison that states, “Notice! On Election Day, Nov. 6th 1894. Execution of Hill-ism, Croker-ism, and Flower-ism. By Order of the People.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-06-13

Richard Croker as the Tammany Tiger holds a measuring tape up to Charles A. Dana, Oswald Ottendorfer, and A. Oakey Hall. Caption: Tammany ought to seek among its oldest and staunchest supporters for a mayoralty candidate who will come up to Seth Low’s measurements.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-09-29

Charles H. Parkhurst holds a sword labeled “Evidence Against Tammany” and waves the tail he has cut off the Tammany Tiger labeled “Lexow Investigation Exposures,” lying dead at his feet. In the background, holding rifles and spears and waving their hats, are Charles S. Fairchild, William R. Grace, Joseph Larocque, and Oswald Ottendorfer.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-11-07

David B. Hill is caught in a large claw-type animal trap labeled “Nomination for N.Y. Governorship.” A sign posted next to the trap states, “This trap was set by David B. Hill to catch an Anti-Snapper.” Two groups of men are standing to the right and left. Among them are Charles S. Fairchild, Carl Schurz, Edward M. Shepard, William R. Grace, and Oswald Ottendorfer. They are laughing at him.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-10-17

Emilio Aguinaldo stands at center, wearing military uniform, and holding a flag and a sword. Around him are many old men dressed as women, supplicating themselves and tossing roses at his feet. Among them are Carl Schurz, John P. Jones, Charles A. Boutelle, Edwin L. Godkin holding a paper labeled “N.Y. Evening Post,” William B. Cockran, Eugene Hale, George G. Vest, Donelson Caffery, George F. Hoar playing a lyre labeled “Sen. Hoar,” William Lloyd Garrison Jr. reading his “Ode to Dear Aguinaldo,” George F. Edmunds, Joseph Pulitzer, Oswald Ottendorfer, [and] William Jennings Bryan. A bundle of “Editorials” lies on a rock in the left foreground.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-05-10

President William McKinley stands on a road leading to the White House, in the background. He is delivering a speech, with a group of newspaper editors and congressmen, to the left and right, who have broken into small groups, talking amongst themselves. In the right foreground, William Jennings Bryan is inflating his “Anti-Annexation Issue for 1900.” American flags are on islands beyond the White House. The flags and/or islands are labeled “Porto Rico, Ladrone Islds., Cuba, Hawaii, [and] Philippine Islds.” At McKinley’s feet is an excerpt from his “Speech at Banquet of Board of Trade and Associated Citizens” in Savannah, December 17, 1898.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-01-11

William Jennings Bryan carries a “Cross of Gold,” a “Crown of Thorns,” and a carpetbag labeled “W.J.B. Speeches” as he walks along railroad tracks headed in the opposite direction of Washington, D.C. Walking with him are newspaper editors Edwin Lawrence Godkin carrying papers labeled “Anti-American Editorials,” Joseph Pulitzer, Edward Atkinson, Carl Schurz carrying a drum on his back labeled “Anti-Expansion Band,” and Oswald Ottendorfer carrying a small bag labeled “Staats Zeitung.” In the background, William McKinley is riding on a railroad car labeled “Expansion Train” that is racing along railroad tracks, headed for Washington, D.C.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-12-20

A large procession crosses the newly-completed Brooklyn Bridge. At the front, dressed as policemen with nightsticks, are several newspaper editors. Among them are James Gordon Bennett, Oswald Ottendorfer, Whitelaw Reid, Murat Halstead, Joseph Pulitzer, Charles A. Dana, and Carl Schurz. Puck follows at center on a white horse, with a group of dandies on the right, one labeled “Freddie,” and a group of “Political Tramps” on the left, including George M. Robeson, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Collier Platt, James G. Blaine, and Roscoe Conkling. John Kelly is at the lead of the “Tammany Heelers,” followed by Hubert O. Thompson with the “New York Street Cleaning Department.” Behind them comes “Puck’s Monopoly Target Company” with Russell Sage, William H. Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Cyrus W. Field. On the left is a masonic group labeled “F. & A.M.” carrying a goat on a pedestal. Beneath the bridge is a boat labeled “The Dynamiter” filled with angry anarchists. Caption: Puck follows the example of the illustrated newspapers, and gives an accurate picture of the event one day before it takes place – and don’t you forget it!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-05-23

In the interior of a blacksmith’s shop, Samuel Randall, Abram Hewitt, and Benjamin Butler are putting oversized shoes labeled “Protection, Free Trade, [and] Incidental Tariff” on a mule labeled “Democracy.” Henry Watterson works on a shoe labeled “Western Policy” and Thomas Bayard reaches for a shoe labeled “Elastic Policy.” In the right foreground, Charles A. Dana is cooling rods labeled “MacDonald Boom, Hancock, Grace, Hendricks, [and] Tilden.” At the furnace are Grover Cleveland, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, and “Robbinson” with irons labeled “Business Principles, Southern Policy, Tariff for Rev. [and] Dodge Policy” in the fire. In the background on the right are John Kelly, Joseph Pulitzer, and Oswald Ottendorfer operating the “Dem. Press Bellows” for the “N.Y. World, N.Y. Star, [and] Staatszeitung.” Puck sits on top of a wall in the upper left, next to a notice that states “Tariff Tinkering Done Here.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-06-20

Print shows General Nelson A. Miles, oversized, sitting at a desk, holding in his left hand a book titled “How to Become President [by] Gen. Miles.” Around him are many newspaper reporters and photographers, representing such newspapers as “The Yellow Yawp, Daily Whoop, The Scare, The Blow, Morning Bluff, Daily Slush [and] Staats Klatsch [with a reporter that looks like Oswald Ottendorfer].” On the wall in the background is a telephone labeled “To the Administration” that is covered with cobwebs.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-03-15

Print shows a large monument constructed “A.D. 1898,” showing statues of President William McKinley labeled “Administration,” General William R. Shafter labeled “Army,” and Admiral George Dewey labeled “Navy,” and a plaque that states “To Commemorate the Spanish-American War which has raised the United States Army and Navy to a proud position not only in the eyes of Americans but in the eyes of the World.” Also, a gang of “Old Women” with ropes are shown trying to pull down the statues. Among the identified women are “Schurz, Boutelle, Hoar, N.Y. World [Pulitzer], Cockran, Tillman, Caffery, Gorman, Vest, Jones, Hale, Bryan, Godkin [turning a crank for the] Evening Post, Sherman, Ottendorfer, [and] Edmunds”.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-03-22

Print shows an American soldier carrying a rifle and bag labeled “U.S.V.” walking in a tropical location. Diminutive figures labeled “Bryan, Ottendorfer, Pulitzer, Atkinson, [and] Godkin” are attempting to hold him back, while George Frisbie Hoar, left behind, stands with his right arm raised in the background.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-05-24