Poster showing a U.S. soldier wielding a bayonet over a fallen German soldier. No. 8-B. Title from item.

Poster showing a dog holding a hat in its mouth, filled with coins and Red Cross membership receipts, against background of Red Cross flags.

A gently satirical commentary on Zachary Taylor's bid for the presidency. In a small office Taylor, hat in hand, is interviewed by a young Brother Jonathan, who sits in a rocking chair with his legs propped up on a "Treasury" strong-box. Jonathan smokes a cigar and stirs a mint julep which, together with a bottle of gin, rests on the table next to him. The various parts of his chair are inscribed symbolically: "Our Rights" (chair back), "Citizenship" (armrest), "Constitution" (seat), and "Freedom" (runner). Posted on a wall behind him is a map of the United States and a notice "White House to Let 4 Years lease from March 4th 1848. Terms moderate." At the far left a writing desk is visible. Taylor stands near the door at right, touching his forelock with his hand. In the dialogue, printed in the lower margin, Jonathan instructs Taylor on anti-subtreasury, soft money Whig fiscal doctrine. Jonathan: "Ah! Youre the Party that wants to Rent my Farm Eh!" Taylor: "If you Please Mr. Jonathan sir, I'm an old Soldier sir. Served in the Mexican Campaign sir." Jonathan: "Very well Mr. Taylor you can have it on one condition, that you offer no obstruction to the removal of the Subtreasury nuisance, so Detrimental to the River Currency, which as you know, sets all my Factories and Workshops a going."|Lith. & pub. by H.R. Robinson 31 Park Row N. York. (Adjoining Lovejoy's Hotel.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 97-98.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1848-40.

Text continues: Relics from over there. Captured German cannons, helmets, gas masks, bomb throwing machines, famous minnenweffers, machine guns of all kinds, whippet tank, armored car, and many other interesting articles. Free. Free. [blank spaces for local exhibition details] Poster is text only. Title from item.

A rare anti-North satire, probably dealing with either the Crittenden Compromise or the Douglas Compromise. Proposed in December 1860 in the form of several constitutional amendments, the former called for restoration of the Missouri Compromise line and prohibition of slavery north of it. Stephen Douglas's compromise, an alternative proposed immediately thereafter, offered two similar amendments but also advocated settlement of the slavery issue by popular sovereignty. "Congressional Surgery" reflects the viewpoint of the lower South, which rejected both compromises. "Doctor North" (Pennsylvania congressman Thaddeus Stevens) sits with hands folded in a chair at left, a young black crouching beside him. On the doctor's desk rests a wooden leg labeled "Constitutional Amendment." The Doctor says, "Help you! Of Course! We will first, with your assistance, take you off your legs, & then fix you up nicely on these Constitutional Amendments." His patient "South," a tall bearded man with his left arm in a sling, replies, "Can't see it." Behind the desk are several crutches and bookshelves holding a bottle of "Black Draught" and a skull.|Signed: A. Del.|Title appears as t is written on the item.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1860-44.

A sheet music cover for a postwar song lamenting the fall of the Confederacy. A ragged Confederate flag stands draped over an abandoned cannon, which sits in a landscape overgrown with grass and weeds. Almost hidden in the grass is the stock of a rifle.|Entered . . . 1866 by A. E. Blackmar . . . Louisiana.|Lith. Feusier, Hoyle & Co. No. 9, Commercial Place. N.O.|New Orleans. Published by A.E. Blackmar. 167 Canal St.|The Library also has a redrawn version, identical except that the lithographer's imprint is missing.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1866-2.

Poster showing a forester holding a pike, and a small night scene of men building a log bridge. Title from item.

A cartoon on the defeat of Whig Henry Clay in the 1844 presidential election, ascribing his loss of the state of New York to his cousin Cassius M. Clay's campaign tour on his behalf. Oddly, though given prominence in the title, Cassius M. Clay does not appear in the picture itself. As Clay and his running mate Theodore Frelinghuysen--each having raccoon bodies--cross a bridge, it collapses in pieces, spilling Clay and his entourage of raccoons and starving dogs into the river. Clay grasps Frelinghuysen's tail and says, "Hold on Vice Frelinghuysen I have not only lost my election, I fear my principles are leaking out and will be exposed to the gaze of the Common people." From his open abdomen fall pistols, playing cards, and dice, evidence of his penchant for dueling and gambling. Freylinghusen responds: "Oh! Great Henry this is the effect of keeping bad Company. I think YOU are about the right material for a Vice President. I advise you to study Divinity it is your only hope left." (Frelinghuysen was a prominent churchman.) Assorted exclamations come from the hapless animals, one of whom cries, "help me Casius or I sink." On the section of the bridge at right several roosters holding brooms (symbolizing reform) jeer at the two candidates, the largest one saying, "Humbug has had its days." Below the roosters, in the distance, a crowd dances around a flagpole with a banner inscribed "Oregon" and "Texas." Further on, a fortress with a flag "Our Thunder" fires one of its guns. Standing on the left side of the bridge are two Pennsylvanians. One says, "Did you hear the news from New York-York York all honest & true" and the other, "Oh! give us Polk & Dallas how happy we will be . . . ." In the water below, a boat marked "Make way for Gov. Shunk" rows by with three men aboard. One man in the boat, possibly newly elected Democratic governor of Pennsylvania Francis R. Shunk, observes of Clay, "that large Coon has very black Legs I reckon." "Blackleg" was common slang for scoundrel. |Entered . . . 1845 by Wm. Dohnert . . . E. District of Penn.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 85.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1845-1.

Poster showing a woman serving muffins, pancakes, and grits, with cannisters on the table labeled corn meal, grits, and hominy. United States Food Administration.

"Salt River," the fictitious river of political doom, is charted here as a meandering stream of Democratic misfortunes. The chart was purportedly "prepared by Father Ritchie," i.e., Democratic editor and Polk administration spokesman Thomas Ritchie. Swipes are taken at the Tariff of 1846, Polk's Vice President George M. Dallas, Martin Van Buren, and 1848 Democratic presidential nominee Lewis Cass. The river winds upward from the Ohio River (Ohio was a Democratic stronghold in 1848) to the Lake of Oblivion with an island on which sits the "Mansion of Despair." The "Fast Sailing Steamer Free Trade," captained by Lewis Cass and piloted by Ritchie, sets out on the "Slough of Despond" below (one of the landmarks in John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress&1). The ship approaches a fork, from which the "Old Fox Branch" on the right leads to "Cabbage Point" and the home of Martin Van Buren. Van Buren can be seen sitting in a rowboat on the river complaining, "Hard work this all; your fault 'John,' with your D--d Free Trade." His son John, a Free Soil party leader and campaigner, encouraged Van Buren's bid for the party's presidential nomination in 1848. On the left Salt River continues past the "Sub Treasury Bluffs," "Noise and Confusion Shoals," "Two Face Points," and "Irish Relief Shoal" (a reference to Democratic support for anti-British insurgents in Ireland), to another fork, "Prince John's Creek." Here John Van Buren walks along the shore and calls, "Good bye Dad! We could not Gull the People." The main branch of the river continues to "Pillow's Cemetery" (named after Gen. Gideon Pillow, conspirator against popular Mexican War commander Winfield Scott and a friend of James K. Polk), "One Seal Island" (?), "Casting Vote Point," and "St Anna Pass." The last is named after Mexican president and commander Santa Anna, whom the Polk administration returned from exile only to see him lead the war against the Americans. On Lake Oblivion is a small ferry boat heads toward the shore at upper right where it will connect with a train named "Tariff [of 18]42," bound for Washington. On the left is a funerary monument "In Memory of Dallas," a memorial to Vice President and former Pennsylvania senator George M. Dallas. Many of Dallas's fellow Pennsylvanians viewed him as a traitor to the state's interests in his support of the Tariff of 1846, which supplanted the popular 1842 tariff.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 97.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1848-26.

Poster showing South Broad Street and City Hall decorated with pennants and flags.

Poster is text only, encouraging men to volunteer for military service. Wt. W10445/595. Title from item.

Poster is text only, encouraging men to volunteer for military service. Title from item.

Poster showing a battle scene with trenches, a tank, and explosion. Forms part of: Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection.

The artist portrays congressional efforts to pass the Crittenden Compromise as an antidote to Republican intransigence on the slavery issue. (For an earlier anti-North satire relating to the compromise, see "Congressional Surgery. Legislative Quackery," no. 1860-44.). Three well-dressed men (probably members of Congress) attend a sick man, who wears a dressing gown and holds a document inscribed "Republican Platform No Compromise." Together they pull the invalid from his chair and struggle to force an oversized pill "Crittenden Compromise" down his throat, pushing it with a "Petition of 63,000." A box of "Constitutional Remedies" (containing more giant pills) is on the floor nearby. The door to the room stands open at right.|Ent'd According to act of Congress 1861.|Published by Benj. Day 48 Beekman St. N.Y.|Signed: BDay del (Benjamin H. Day, Jr.).|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 130.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1861-1.

One of two prints by "HD" (identified by Weitenkampf and others tentatively as Henry Dacre) based on incidents during President Van Buren's visit to the resort at Saratoga Springs, New York, during the summer of 1839. (See also "The Meeting at Saratoga" no. 1839-4.) Although Van Buren is known to have stayed at Saratoga on his tour of New York State, it is not clear to what degree Dacre's scenes are imaginary or contrived for satirical effect. Here Martin Van Buren is snubbed by the widow of former political rival DeWitt Clinton. In a room filled with elegantly dressed men and women, Van Buren says to Mrs. Clinton, "Stay Madam, I would beg some words with you." Mrs. Clinton, turning away, is asked by her companion, "Mrs. C...... why did you not speak to him, when he look'd so very Pleasant?" To which she responds, "I! I! speak to the ........ who persecuted my husband to the day of his Death!" Mrs. Clinton's refusal to speak to Van Buren at Saratoga, on the grounds that he had allegedly dissuaded former President Jackson from visiting her, was widely reported in the New York press. |Lith. of H.R. Robinson, 52 Cortlandt St.|Signed with monogram: HD (Henry Dacre?).|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 59.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1839-3.

Figurative portrayal of Whig opposition to the independent treasury or subtreasury system conceived by Jackson and implemented by Van Buren and the Democrats. In a large tree is a nest labeled "Sub Treasury" in which sits an alarmed hen, Andrew Jackson, who says, "Woodman spare that tree!! By the Eternal dont cut it down." Falling from the tree is a crow with Van Buren's head who exclaims, "I'll never trust to Hickory agin, but go and roost among the "Kabbitches" at Kinderhook." The tree is being felled by Harrison, who wields an axe "Reform," and says, "I used to be a pretty good axe-man when I first lived in a log cabin! I think there's enough left of the old stuff yet to hew down this tree!" Henry Clay and Daniel Webster are pulling it down with a rope. Clay: "Down with it! it has overshadowed the land long enough, and poisoned every thing with its noxious exhalations!" Webster: "Pull together and down it must come!" |Entered . . . 1840 by John Childs.|Published by John Childs, 90 Nassau St. New York.|Signed with monogram: EWC (Edward Williams Clay).|The print was deposited for copyright on September 24, 1840. |Title appears as it is written on the item.|Davison, no. 137.|Weitenkampf, p. 65.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1840-57.

Poster showing a pensive man with his daughter on his lap, while a boy plays with toy soldiers at his feet. Poster no. 79. Title from item.

Poster showing a woman thinking of her soldier husband at the front, as children play around her. Title from item.