Search results

Title: I take it on my responsibility
Description: Cartoon critical of Andrew Jackson's decision to discontinue federal deposits to the Bank of the United States and his denial that his informal circle of close advisors, known as the "Kitchen Cabinet," influenced his decision. Depicts Jackson pinned to a column at the top of the stairs of the bank as he and other white men are being drenched by white men wielding fire hoses, one labeled "United States," in the street. Near Jackson, a kettle boils, fueled by burning papers labeled "Constitution" and "Globe," the pro-Jackson newspaper. Behind him several men, one labeled "K.C.," are involved in altercations. Other men run down the steps, one colliding with an African American man carrying barrels. In the street, a rotund white man, attired in a military uniform, observes the soaking of Jackson with delight while two other white men appear to be coming to Jackson's aid., Title from item., Date of publication supplied by Weitenkampf., Originally part of American political caricatures, likely a scrapbook, accessioned 1899. Collection primarily comprised of gifts from Samuel Breck, John A. McAllister, and James Rush., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: [1834]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1834-12W [5760.F.57]

Title: [I] take the responsibility
Description: Satire concerning Andrew Jackson's role in the controversy over the discontinuation of federal deposits to the Bank of the United States. Jackson, portrayed as a jack-ass, is led by Van Buren, believed to be the force behind the discontinuation. He pulls a refuse cart labeled "K.C." (i.e., Kitchen Cabinet) which symbolizes the U.S. government. The cart is steered by a figure made of kitchen implements. A barefoot African American man, portrayed as a racist caricature and attired in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and pants, pours a bucket of waste from a public privy labeled "Public Accommodations. Place of Deposit" into the cart. There is a white man sitting inside the "Public Accommodations" building and large rats run on the roof., Title from item., Pictograph of an eye is used in place of "I" in title., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1834 by Endicott & Swett in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the southern District of New York., Inscribed: No. 1., Hassan Straightshanks is possibly a pseudonym for David Claypoole Johnston., Purchase 1957., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: 1834
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons -1834-12 [6194.F]

Title: A confederacy against the Constitution and the rights of the people with an historical view of the component parts of this diabolical transaction
Description: Cartoon during the Bank War satirizing the Whig Party as greedy, anti-democratic, pro-Bank, pro-business infidels who worship in the Temple of Mammon to the false god of riches. Atop the temple, a white man, holding a flag inscribed "No Veto! The Bank! Down with Democracy!" kneels on a pedestal inscribed "Bank Candidate. War, Pestilence, and Famine." Within the temple sit symbolic and political figures including: the Devil representing the "Hartford Convention" of 1815, which debated Northern secession; the "High Church" as a clergyman pleading for donations to preach; the "High Priest" Henry Clay with his "U.S. Bank Book" sitting on his throne the "Chair of State"; the "High Chancellor," Bank of the United States president, Nicholas Biddle pouring out a bag of money to buy newspaper editors; a Northerner ("High Tarrif") discussing slavery, "You Southern Barons have black slaves will you not allow us to make white slaves of our poor population in our Manufacturing Baronies"; and southern pro-nullification senator John C. Calhoun ("No Tariff"), who bemoans his association with Whigs in his personal campaign against political rival Martin Van Buren. In the foreground, worshipers, including monkeys, pray and are chained near a printing press, pro-Bank newspapers, and flags and banners. The flags and banners denigrate "Jefferson," "democracy," and "equal rights" and support "high tariffs," the "merchant class," the "Bank of the United States," and "white slavery.", Title from item., Artist's initial lower left corner: H., Probably published by labor radical Seth Luther., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2001, p. 27, 30., Originally part of American political caricatures, likely a scrapbook, accessioned 1899. Collection primarily comprised of gifts from Samuel Breck, John A. McAllister, and James Rush., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: [1833?]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1833-20 [5760.F.43]

Title: The people putting responsibility to the test or the downfall of the kitchen cabinet and collar presses
Description: Cartoon predicting the dire consequences to follow President Jackson's withdrawal of federal funds from the Bank of the United States. Depicts a riot in which Supreme Court Justice John Marshall warns that "the day of retribution is at hand" as anti-bank fiscal advisors Reuben Whitney and Thomas Ellicott use a rope to pull down a statue of Justice, depicted as a white woman holding scales and stepping on a snake, from a pedestal labeled "Constitution." An angry mob of white men farmers, laborers, and tradesmen carry instruments including axes, pitchforks, and shovels and papers labeled, “Broken Bank.” They fight and demand the recharter of the bank, shouting "Send back the deposites! Recharter the Bank!" and "Come back old responsibility." In the right, Jackson escapes on the back of "Jack Downing" cursing Postmaster General Kendall, "By the Eternal Major Downing; I find Ive been a mere tool to that Damn'd Amos [Kendall] and his set, the sooner I cut stick the better." In the left background, under "Senate Chamber," Henry Clay gloats to Daniel Webster and John Calhoun, "Behold Senators the fulfilment of my predictions." In the left foreground, two African American men, portrayed in racist caricature and speaking in the vernacular, predict freedom and the ascension to the throne of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, "Hurrah! for Massa Garison, den he shall be King!" A Jewish banker, portrayed in caricature, undercuts a sailor offering him a ten dollar bank note, "Mine Got that ish one of the Pet Bankhs I'll give you one Dollar for the Ten." In the right foreground, newspapers supportive of Jackson, "collar presses," symbolized as dogs with human heads labeled "Evening Post, N. York Standard, Journal of Commerce, Albany Argus," run away chained together., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress in the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York by T.W. Whitley in the year 1834, and for sale at 104 Broadway., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Whitley was a mid-19th-century New York landscape and figure painter who also wrote about art and drama for the New York Herald.
Creator: Whitley, T. W. (Thomas W.), artist
Date: 1834
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1834-7 [1884.F.3]

Title: All on hobbies, gee up, gee ho!
Description: Cartoon depicting the possible candidates for the presidential election of 1840, riding hobby horses symbolizing their issues. President Van Buren leads the pack cheering on his "old hickory nag," "Sub Treasury," named after his financial program, which allowed independent agencies to administer federal funds. Politicians following Van Buren include: bullionist Senator Thomas Hart Benton on "Specie Currency," his "golden poney" which carries "more weight than any of them"; Senators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, leading opponents to Van Buren's fiscal policy, bickering over their shared horse named after the defunct "United States Bank"; South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun riding his "consistent" horse "State Rights and Nullification"; 1836 presidential nominee William Henry Harrison, attired in uniform, on his "Anti-Masonic" horse that keeps a "pretty easy pace" but may "lose his wind" if another scandal like the abduction and murder of mason William Morgan does not occur; and Congressman John Quincy Adams steering away from the group on his "Ebony" horse "Abolition.", Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entd accordd to Act of Congress in the year 1838, by H.R. Robinson, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York., Artist's initial lower left corner., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Described in Nancy Reynolds Davison's E.W. Clay: American political caricaturist of the Jacksonian era (PhD diss., The University of Michigan, 1980), p. 205., Accessioned 1989., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Creator: Clay, Edward Williams, 1799-1857, lithographer
Date: 1838
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1838-1 [P.9249.8]

Main menu