Sled cabs, Madeira Islands
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Sleds
Moro carbao sled, Island of Mindanao, Philippines
Postcard from Alma Lafferty to Mary Jane Lafferty
Postcard of winter in St. John shows two bears snow sledding, one of whom is falling off the sled. Alma Lafferty, the sender, tells her mother, “Uncle Tom is very poorly…he had a very bad night.”
Collection
Creation Date
1907-09-30
Letter from Sarah Flandrau Cutcheon to Charles Macomb Flandrau
Sally Flandrau Cutcheon scolds Charles Macomb Flandrau for writing her such short letters. Cutcheon goes on to discuss Patty Selmes’s hunting plans, looking after Isabella Selmes, and going sledding.
Collection
Creation Date
1891
He’d better cut behind
President McKinley drives a sleigh labeled “Prosperity,” drawn by a horse labeled “Administration.” He is towing two small sleds. One labeled “Defective Currency System” is carrying William Jennings Bryan, and the other labeled “Deficit” is carrying a bloated Nelson Dingley. Caption: McKinley–I wonder what makes this pesky thing pull so hard?
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1898-01-19
Passing everything on the road
A street on a winter’s day is crowded with horse-drawn sleighs, some of which are attempting to get ahead of the others. On the left, a sleigh labeled “J. Gould” carrying Gould, Whitelaw Reid, and Roscoe Conkling has caused another sleigh labeled “Villard” and “Northern Pacific R. R.” to overturn, spilling Henry Villard, and nearly hitting George H. “Pendleton” holding on to the arm of a young girl labeled “Civil Service Reform.” Behind them is a troika labeled “Standard Oil Co.” that is driven by Sereno “Payne.” Racing ahead at the center is a sleigh labeled “The P– be d–” and “Vanderbilt” driven by William H. Vanderbilt. On the right is a large “Labor Sleigh” loaded with blue-collar workers and drawn by a single, scrawny horse struggling to keep pace. To the far right are two sleighs. One labeled “Roach Contract Cutter” is driven by John Roach and the other labeled “Field” is driven by Cyrus Field. Bringing up the rear is a sleigh labeled “Huntington” driven by Collis P. Huntington and flying a banner that states, “It costs money to fix things.” A man with a bag labeled “Laborer Iron” has fallen in the street and is about to be run over by Roach and the Labor Sleigh.
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1884-02-06
Obeying instructions
A young man is at the wheel of a sled, racing down a steep mountainside in winter. Sitting behind him are another young man and a young woman who are holding each other in an embrace. Caption: Man at the Wheel — Hold tight back there!
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1914-12-12
Over with the che-ild!
A sled labeled “Wall Street,” being pulled by a bull and a bear, races through the snow on a winter night, being chased by a wolf with the face of Theodore Roosevelt. The driver, wearing a hat labeled “The Railroads,” is about to throw a child labeled “Overcapitalization” to the wolf.
Comments and Context
J. S. Pughe’s deceptively simple cartoon is actually filled with labels that might be superfluous; the situation in American politics and the economy was rather simple in the first place. Railroads has become over-capitalized.
The many reasons for this were not all noble but made short-term economic sense. Before regulation of rates and routes, railroads were essential to virtually every business and citizen in virtually every part of the country, and were natural generators of great profits. Hundreds of lines, some very local, were targets of consolidators as well as arbiters of distribution, and wielders of influence. Reform legislation and regulation portended the end of that system in 1907.
Nearing the end
Czar Nicholas II of Russia clutches against his chest a doll that is wearing a crown labeled “Autocracy” as he races through the woods in a troika pursued by a pack of angry, ravenous wolves.
Comments and Context
Keppler’s cartoon is a simple depiction of a simple situation, or, in the eyes of the Czar and his dwindling number of supporters, a complicated situation.
After three centuries of autocratic rule (since 1613) by the Romanovs over “the Russias” — the vast homeland, satellite peoples and countries, brutal serfdom, oppression of minorities and suppression of freedoms — the world of Czar Nicholas II was unravelling at the time of cartoonist Keppler’s drawing.
All his own
Uncle Sam pushes President Theodore Roosevelt, on a sled labeled “The ‘Teddy’ Flyer,” down a snow covered hill labeled “1905 to 1909.” In the background is a wrecked sled labeled “McKinley’s Policy.”
Comments and Context
This issue of Puck was dated just days before Theodore Roosevelt’s inauguration to his second presidential term. That Puck, generally a Democratic journal, frequently had been partial to Roosevelt and his policies is seen by the favorable aura in the cover cartoon.
The point perhaps was irresistible that his own sled was so different from that of the assassinated President William McKinley — or, rather, that McKinley’s policies had been smashed. Roosevelt had pledged, when taking the oath of office on McKinley’s death, that he would “continue, absolutely unbroken” the policy of the administration he inherited. He generally did this, but history (and McKinley’s eminence grise Mark Hanna at the time) assumed a lurch in the administration’s trajectory. Clearly Roosevelt initiated many reforms, but there was evidence that McKinley intended reforms of his own, regarding tariffs and trusts.