Sabbath | - Theodore Roosevelt Center

“In the interest of labor and morality”

On the left, many businessmen and women appear in stocks and pillories for such offenses as serving guests wine on Sunday, “for shaving on Sunday,” “for delivering ice on Sunday,” “for selling a glass of beer on Sunday,” “for blacking shoes on Sunday,” and “for working the growler on Sunday.” A notice states, “Behold the Punishment of the Wicked Sabbath Breaker. Let All Evil Doers Beware.” On the right is a group of New York legislators dressed as Puritans, including Lieutenant Governor Charles T. “Saxton,” Thomas C. “Platt,” Jacob M. “Patterson,” Hamilton “Fish,” Frederick S. “Gibbs,” Warner “Miller,” Governor Levi P. “Morton,” Chauncey M. “Depew,” and Jacob S. “Fassett.” Caption: The glorious revival of blue Sundays, stocks and pillories, that our good Republican Puritans are trying to bring about.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-10-16

“Peanut Dave, the little defender”

David B. Hill sits on a large pail labeled “Growler” that is lying on its side, spilling the contents. Hill is using a rolled up paper labeled, “Let the Workingman Have His Sunday Beer” to swat a bat labeled “Blue Law Fanatic.” Caption: Here’s a splendid chance to make political capital, and he’s not missing it.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-08-07

The wealthy sabbatarian fanatic

In this vignette cartoon is a man who firmly believes in observing the Sabbath, as he tells his friends. In the surrounding vignettes, he insists that his Sunday newspaper be delivered earlier, that the gardener put out flowers on the tables and in all the rooms, that the bootblack shine his shoes faster, that his driver be available for the entire day, and that the barber add more chairs so he will not have to wait so long for a haircut on Sunday. Caption: He wants everybody to rest on Sunday, except those who serve him personally.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-05-22

The woes of the sabbatarian fanatic – they get greater every year

A member of the clergy, a strict “Sabbatarian,” observes and deplores people engaging in various Sunday activities, including boating and bicycling. In the center vignette, Satan objects to the Sunday outings, too, because they seem “to make people better, instead of worse.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-05-26

Sunday, the day of rest

At the intersection of a busy city street and a street railroad on a Sunday, many activities are taking place at an amusement park, a golf course, a real estate office, a club house, a baseball game in progress, and on a beach.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-06-18

The politician and his dupes

A politician agrees with a woman labeled “W.C.T.U.” and a man holding a Bible, who are standing on the right. Behind them are the locked and barricaded doors to a cafe on which is a sign “Closed Sunday.” On the left, behind the politician, is an open door labeled “Family Entrance” from which the cafe owner is placing a bribe in the politician’s right hand. Further to the left is a police officer leaning against the building, pretending not to notice the illegal transaction. Caption: Politician (to Temperance Element) — You’re right! The sanctity of the American Sabbath must be preserved!

Comments and Context

The cartoon illustrates an anomaly in long-running debates about “Sunday closings” of saloons. Even today in much of the United States, local ordinances restrict liquor sales on Sundays, so the controversy has only quieted, not ended. At the time of this cartoon, the WCTU (Women’s Christians Temperance Union) and other groups including religious, social, and feminist, advocated a range of reforms from Sunday closings to full-fledged prohibition of spirits (and, often, tobacco). In many places, Sunday-closing laws were circumvented by reclassification of saloons as restaurants or hotels, rebirth as “private clubs,” or by outright bribery of police and judges. Gallaway’s cartoon portrays the depth of hypocrisy — the political establishment that not only enabled circumvention, but its virtue signals to prohibitionists. When Theodore Roosevelt enforced Sunday-closing laws as Police Commissioner of New York City, he endured criticism, for instance, from common laborers and their families, whose only days of rest were Sundays. But he maintained that the remedy was to change the regulations, not condone corruption.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Puck’s summer round-up

Several scenes of wit and humor in life are depicted, including children swimming and being rebuked for playing baseball on the Sabbath, women doing plein air painting, men yachting, and young women discussing courtship. At bottom right, “American progression of three years (Next!)” shows a repair shop moving forward with the times, from wagon repair to bicycle repair and then to automobile repair.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1901-09-11

We grow wiser as we grow older

A large female figure labeled “Enlightenment” pushes open doors labeled “Pan-American Exposition” and knocks out of the way an old woman labeled “Sabbatarian Fanatic” and a man labeled “Sabbatarian Bigot” who were attempting to prevent the Exposition from opening on Sunday. Caption: The managers of the Buffalo Exposition have decided to open it on Sunday.

Comments and Context

One of the controversies surrounding the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where Puck Magazine had its own pavilion, was Sunday operation. Traditional Sabbatarians argued that such fairs be closed on the Lord’s Days, but many people petitioned for Sunday openings, principally on the grounds that working people, when six-day work weeks were yet common, could only visit with their families on Sundays.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to James Roscoe Day

President Roosevelt is unaware of what was in the newspaper regarding his visit to Chattanooga, Tennessee, but defends his schedule for that Sunday. Roosevelt claims to have attended two church services and visited the battlefields of Chattanooga and Chickamauga.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-09-13

Letter from James Roscoe Day to Theodore Roosevelt

President Day of Syracuse University regrets that a local newspaper’s reports of President Roosevelt’s Sunday speech as “a day of fun” and a “little sermon” have been widely circulated. He vows to try to correct them in his circle of acquaintances.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-09-16

Letter from James Roscoe Day to Theodore Roosevelt

Chancellor Day expresses disappointment with President Roosevelt for failing to be an “example of reverence” on the Sabbath. Last Sunday was the anniversary week of President McKinley’s assassination, and it followed President Roosevelt’s own near-death experience from an accident in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (September 3). These experiences called for greater reverence on the Sabbath than what the papers characterized as Roosevelt having a day of “sport and fun.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-09-12