Sleep

Three secret service men and a bull dog quietly walk away from a house on Oyster Bay saying, “Hush!” “Don’t make a noise, he’s asleep!” “Sh-h-h-h!! He’s sleeping” and “He is asleep!” Inside the house the following noises are made: “Z-z-z-z!! Bzzz! Z-z-zoch!! Z-z-z! B-z! B-z-zip! Bz-z!” Caption: “‘A live bear has taken up his home in the woods on Sagamore Hill, and in the early hours this morning he paid a visit to the home of President Roosevelt. Secret service men hastily organized a hunting party. The hunt lasted until 6 o’clock. The bear got away. It is the belief that it has been living here for several days.’ — Extracts From a News Item From Oyster Bay.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Ralph Wilder, the stylistic disciple of John T. McCutcheon in Chicago, humorously illustrated a news item on a slow-news day in the mid-August of President Roosevelt’s long vacation in Oyster Bay. If a bear was in the vicinity, and did in fact escape the notice of the nation’s most famous bear hunter, Wilder confused the issue by drawing bear tracks that look like human footprints.

A young boy sits on the ground, leaning against a tree, asleep. Around him are clusters of fireworks waiting to be ignited.

comments and context

Comments and Context

A boy’s dream (as would have been specified in the Old Days) on the Fourth of July. Napping in a little country spot on the Fourth, as per the magazine’s issue date above his head, flowers have turned to pinwheels, Roman candles, and other fireworks.

Uncle Sam, as a sleeping Swiss guard of the “Public Funds,” is being overtaken by trees and cobwebs. Two dogs are also asleep at his feet. A building on the right labeled “Public Funds” is being overgrown by a tree labeled “Corruption” with spreading limbs labeled “National, State, [and] City.” A snake labeled “Lobbyism” hangs from the branches, and rats flee with coins from its coffers. Two spiders labeled “Graft” and “Bossism” ply the webs, a tree on the left is labeled “Ring Rule,” and an alligator labeled “Greed” prowls the foreground among tree roots labeled “Dead Conscience.” In the background, a vulture labeled “Monopoly” keeps an eye on a candlelight vigil by a person labeled “Dead Letter Laws” for a female figure labeled “Honesty.” The candle glows with “Hope.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon illustrates the magazine’s evolution from humor-tinged reform advocacies to a more urgent, more radical agenda. In its past, the magazine would have addressed these social and governmental ills, but without the apocalyptic tone of this cartoon.

Thomas Johnstone Lipton beats a hand-drum labeled “American Progress,” trying to wake John Bull who is sound asleep in a chair. Caption: “There is no more loyal Britisher than myself; but I can’t close my eyes to one thing, and that is we are a decaying nation, commercially, as compared to your country, and the United States is the greatest country on the face of the earth to-day.”–Speech of Sir Thomas Lipton.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The jovial entrepreneur Sir Thomas Lipton was a Scots-Irish celebrity famous for his lines of teas, his chains of grocery stores, and his love of yachting. He regularly entered his yachts in the America’s Cup contests — never winning — but even in defeat his admiration of and affection for the United States was evident to all.

Uncle Sam, John Bull (cartoon figure of Great Britain) and William II, Emperor of Germany, stand before Mars, the god of war, who is lying on the ground, asleep. Caption: “Sh-h-h! ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.'”

comments and context

Comments and Context

In the years preceding World War I, nations of the world formed alliances by open or secret treaties, ostensibly to secure peace, but often to establish spheres of influence or buy time for other goals. The “Dreibund,” a German term for three-part alliance, never happened, at least with Great Britain who seriously mistrusted Germany (and vice-versa), not the United States, especially vis a vis Germany. The size and latent awful strength of Mars, suggested by Keppler’s cartoon, was unleashed a dozen years later on the European continent.

A short story regarding the ability to have an “inner man” who will wake you up when you want him to. As the story continues, Quentin Roosevelt’s inner man becomes unreliable and he has to buy an alarm clock.

Collection

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Creation Date

Unknown

A lullaby poem, describing what happens when children sleep. Quentin Roosevelt’s name is at the top, and the poem is in the hand of Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. Authorship is uncertain.

Collection

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Creation Date

1906-03-10

A senator, probably William M. Stewart, with papers in his pocket labeled “Silver Mine Owner,” addresses the Senate, though all the senators are asleep.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1893-10-18

A woman wearing a crown labeled “Commerce” lies sleeping on a bed. A “Business Man” stands on the left with cobwebs and a top hat at his feet. A sleeping “Laborer” sits on a wall with cobwebs around him. Caption: May the new Secretary of the Treasury be the prince who will awaken her to a long and happy life.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-02-17

President William McKinley lies in bed dreaming of William Jennings Bryan riding the Democratic donkey and leading members of the Democratic Party. Party members carry banners that state, “Anti-American Foreign Policy,” “16 to 1 or Bust All Paper Should be Coined into Ten-Dollar Bills,” “Death to Trusts (the necessities of life are too cheap already),” “Down with the Courts,” and “Free Silver.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-08-02

A “Middle West” farmer is being awakened by Albert B. “Cummins” as a rooster, while a man sneaks into the farmer’s barn and is caught in the illumination of a lantern beam labeled “Tariff Greed.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1909-09-01

Print shows the ghost of the British Lion reacting with fear at finding an “Irish American” and a “German American” in a bed labeled “Anti Anglo-American Alliance.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-05-03

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

Print shows a small, rustic room crowded with members of the Democratic Party, some dressed as old women, others drinking and smoking clay pipes. One man, the “Shaughraun” labeled “Democratic Party,” is lying on a board that is resting on wooden supports. He is stirred to life by snuff sprinkled on his nose from a bowl labeled “Tariff Reform Snuff” by John G. Carlisle who is dressed in a formal uniform with sword. Among the crowd are Charles A. Dana, Benjamin F. Butler, and Samuel J. Tilden (all dressed as old women), Grover Cleveland, Samuel J. Randall, John Kelly, Henry Watterson, Abram S. Hewitt (dressed as an old woman), Samuel S. Cox, and Thomas F. Bayard (also dressed as an old woman), with arms raised in alarm and a broken pipe at his feet. On the far right are Thomas A. Hendricks drinking from a bottle labeled “Old Ticket Rye,” Winfield Scott Hancock, and Allen G. Thurman. Caption: “Captain” Carlisle shows that he is up to snuff.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-12-12

A woman labeled “Republican Party” sleeps in the background, while members of her court, some dressed as women, also sleep in the foreground. Depicted are Whitelaw Reid, Murat Halstead, Russell Sage, John Roach, Jay Gould, Benjamin F. Butler, James G. Blaine, William H. Vanderbilt, John Logan, Cyrus W. Field, two dogs labeled “Phila. Press” and “Chicago Tribune,” Chester A. Arthur, Rutherford B. Hayes, William W. Phelps, John Sherman, Simon Cameron, George F. Hoar, Alonzo B. Cornell, Stephen W. Dorsey, Thomas J. Brady, William M. Evarts, George M. Robeson, William E. Chandler, and Joseph W. Keifer. Caption: She bungled with the civil-service reform distaff, and she and all her court were condemned to sleep for __ years.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-08-26

Former Governor of Massachusetts, William L. Douglas, appears as a courtier, gesturing toward a woman labeled “Democratic Victory” on a bed “Asleep Since 1892,” and asking Oscar W. Underwood, Woodrow Wilson, Champ Clark, and Judson Harmon which has “a better chance of waking her.” Douglas holds a shield with the message “Record: Tariff reform Democrat. Elected Governor of Massachusetts by 35,995 when Roosevelt carried that state against Parker by 92,076.” A lady-in-waiting, the Democratic donkey, has fallen asleep at the foot of the bed. The room is filled with cobwebs labeled “Defeat in 1896, Defeat in 1900, Defeat in 1904, [and] Defeat in 1908,” and is becoming overgrown with tree roots.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-06-19

Rip Van Winkle, his beard long and his clothes tattered, lies sleeping near an abandoned ship yard. An overturned jug labeled “High Protective Tariff” is at his side and a sign behind him states “Prohibitive Cost of Construction.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-11-15

A large African man is leaning against a tree, asleep. Several European countries are staking claims to portions of Africa, planting flags labeled “England, Portugal, Belgium, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Spain, [and] France” all around the sleeping man. Caption: Cutting a continent out from under him.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-10-25