Smoking

Freshmen college students are being tested for “Beer Capacity,” on the “Cigarette Tester,” and the “Rah Rah Recorder” at “Sis Boom University.” Caption: The freshmen are taking their entrance exams.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Puck does take note of the autumn ritual that is the opening of the college year. Cartoonist L. M. Glackens employs reasonable cynicism by choosing to address entrance tests and ignore academic potential, specialized aptitude, and chosen fields of study. Instead he depicts the popular cliches about some students at some colleges — beer, cigarettes, and sports.

President Roosevelt, pictured with a cigar in his hand, greets guests at the White House. Many other guests appear in the background, dancing, smoking, and visiting.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Representative William Bourke Cockran (both Bourke and Cockran were spelled different ways during his lifetime) was a Democratic congressman, known as a great orator, who bolted his party in 1896 to support William McKinley, but returned shortly thereafter to the Democratic Party. In 1903, Cockran was one of several congressmen who criticized President Roosevelt for spending too much money on the White House refurbishment and on White House entertainments. Hence this cartoon, which shows a keg of beer instead of fine wines, a fiddler instead of an orchestra, men in hobnail shoes instead of dress boots, and guests with their feet on the table.

Archibald W. Conklin asks Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary if Roosevelt smokes. He does not think Roosevelt seems like a smoker.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-07-14

Paul Joseph Dashiell sends Theodore Roosevelt a pouch of “larb,” which Native Americans sometimes smoke in place of tobacco. He says that mixed with tobacco, it tastes and smells like campfire smoke. The pouch used to belong to W. Hallett Phillips. Dashiell thinks that Roosevelt will appreciate the pouch, because he appreciates the West.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-07-14

John E. Wilkie, Chief of the Secret Service, responds to dissatisfaction regarding the agents stationed at President Roosevelt’s Oyster Bay home.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-08-17

President McKinley takes a break to smoke a cigar while a wax figure sits at his desk to suggest that he is hard at work reviewing applications from office seekers who are clamoring in the background, hoping to get an audience with the President. Caption: A wax-figure substitute would enable the President to get a breathing-spell, now and then, from the onslaught of the office-hunters.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-03-31

A woman wearing a large hat smokes a cigarette and gets a manicure from a man wearing a suit. Caption: In the era of the suffragette.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-10-19

Print shows two fashionably dressed young women, one sitting in a chair with her left foot resting on her right knee, holding a cane and gloves, and smoking a cigarette. The other is sitting on the edge of a table, holding a paper with the word “Freedom” at the top; there is an alcoholic beverage between them. These liberated women are discussing a remark made by the husband of one of them the prior evening. Caption: “I had a row with my husband after the play, last night.” / “What about?” / “He tried to call me down for going out between the acts to see a woman.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-03-29

Many women in the “Mrs. P. J. Gilligan” bar smoke and drink at their leisure. Caption: For the benefit of those ladies who ask the right to smoke in public.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Puck asserts in putative humor that there is a fine line between women smoking cigarettes in public, and the panoply of delights in a man’s saloon — heavy drinking, gambling, and ignoring the please of children to return home.

George Wood Wingate, President of the Public School Athletic League, writes an open letter to boys across New York, urging them that, “You cannot expect success in life however well you may be educated, unless you have got a sound body.” Wingate recounts the successes of the league in holding hundreds of tournaments and games throughout the city. The articles were enclosed in a letter from Jacob Riis to Theodore Roosevelt, who supports the Public School Athletic League.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-05-01