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- Title
- Banks & bribery, v.s. balls & bumbs scene 1st Or the destruction of aristocracy monopoly and oppression
- Description
- Cartoon concerning President Jackson's destruction of the Bank of the United States, including his veto of the Bank's recharter and the removal of its federal deposits. Depicts Jackson, "Jack Downing," and others attacking the Bank with axes, "veto mortar," and cannon balls. Jackson and "Downing" hollar about "smashing down" "Monopoly & Oppression" as well as the absence of a "nest of varmants" when the house was originally built. Members of Bank investigative "committees" flee the building, while others are crushed under the bank, its "deposit pillar" destroyed. Spectators, including evil sprites, run a press, clamor for tossed money bags labelled with alleged bribery amounts, and scream "This is a fair business transaction." Also includes sheets of paper scattered on the ground inscribed with allusions to the Bank War, including"Deranged Currency" and "Petitions.", Manuscript note on verso: From his Aunt Isabella 1840., Previous owner, probably C.P. Lukens. See Congressional Elephant political cartoons - 1832 - 2 (5760.f.42)., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, editions.
- Date
- [1834?]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1834-4W [5760.F.58]
- Title
- Bank-ometer Truths for the producers of wealth the banking system unmasked or the true causes of pressure panic and distress
- Description
- Cartoon designed by radical labor activist Seth Luther to promote the dissolution of the United States banking system. Depicts the U.S Bank as operated by the industrial turbine "Currency Reservoir." The "Bank of England Tube," "State Bank Tube," and "Expansion and Contraction Tube" extend from the reservoir and power meters labeled "Paperometer," "Stockometer," Flourometer," and "Wageometer," which flank the bank and measure the system. Meters measure the benefits to industry and the disadvantages to the artisan of the banking system from 1816 to 1840, including: the expansion and contraction of paper money; the prices and amounts of import and export commodities; the economic effects from the monetary fluctuations on manufacturers and mechanics; the price of stocks and flour; and the wages (lower in 1840 than 1816) and cost of living of New York carpenters. Also contains seventeen boxed quotations from prominent political figures criticizing paper money and banks, including statements by Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Samuel Young, John Tyler, and Bank of the United States supporter Henry Clay; a chart containing figures indicating an increase in the number of banks from 1774 to 1840, the amount of hard and paper currency in circulation, and the "aggregate receipts" from public land sales; as well as references to Jackson's 1832 veto of the Bank of the United States and Van Buren's 1840 Independent Treasury Bill. Dedicated to Andrew Jackson for his "righteous" veto of the Bank of the United States on July 4, 1840., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to act of Congress July 22, 1840 Seth Luther Author and Proprietor in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the So. District of N.Y., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Library Company Annual Report, 2001, p. 30., Advertised in Public Ledger, October 8, 1840. Price listed as 25 cents.
- Creator
- Lawton, Stephen, lithographer
- Date
- designed Nov. 1833, drawn 1840, cJuly 22, 1840
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *political cartoons - 1840-Ban [5760.F.84]
- Title
- A Correct chart of Salt River
- Description
- "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). 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 from item., Date inferred from content., Library copy has manuscript written on lower right recto: March 5th, 1849., Retrospective conversion record: original entry.
- Date
- [1848]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1848-50 [P.2275.28]