Your TR Source

Taverns (Inns)

Search by Date Range

Clear Filters

6 Results

Rip Van Winkle’s return

Rip Van Winkle’s return

Outside a building labeled “Washington Inn” with an image of the U.S. Capitol on the sign, a large group of Republican legislators, politicians, and others are laughing at an old man wearing tattered clothing labeled “Democracy.” He looks dazed, as though he has just wandered in from the past; his walking stick is dated “1861.” Two dogs labeled “N.Y. Tribune” and “N.Y. Times” sniff at his heels. Among those present are George M. Robeson, Ulysses S. Grant, John Logan, James Gillespie Blaine, Chester Alan Arthur (dressed as a woman, serving food and drinks), Charles J. Folger, George Frisbie Hoar, Joseph Warren Keifer, Horace F. Page, William Mahone (doing a hand-stand), J. D. Cameron, Roscoe Conkling, John Sherman, George F. Edmunds, John P. Jones, and Thomas Collier Platt.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-03-14

A new way of “waking” the Democratic shaughraun

A new way of “waking” the Democratic shaughraun

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

The return of Rip Van Winkle

The return of Rip Van Winkle

An elderly man labeled “The Law,” with a long beard and holding a broken gun labeled “Fines,” peers at a group of bloated criminals standing and sitting on the porch of “The Jolly Grafter’s Inn, Successor to Ye Stern Justice” who are laughing at the old man before them. Those on the porch are labeled “Big Offender, Respectable Crook, Handy Judge [with a glass of] Judicial Favors, Corporate Lawyer [with mugs of] Legal Aid, Tax Dodger, Special Privilege, Insurance Grafter, Corrupt Business, Rail Road Merger, [and the] Oil, Coal, [and] Beef Trust[s].” On a table is a newspaper labeled “The Daily Graft,” and growling at the man is a dog labeled “Subsidized Press.”

Comments and Context

Puck had fought cheek-to-jowl with reform politicians, Muckraking journals, and President Roosevelt over most of the recent years, week after week. In this crowded center-spread cartoon, J. S. Pughe expressed the utmost cynicism about laws and regulations that were hard-fought and hard-won in 1906.

Puck knew how substantial the gains and reforms were, yet either reverted to the defeatism borne of decades of frustrated reform efforts; or it was returning to its Democratic roots.