"The Freedman's Bureau." [graphic] / Thos. Worth.
Title
"The Freedman's Bureau."
Description
Visual pun on the Freedman's Bureau, a benevolent government organization, which aided formerly enslaved African Americans in the South by providing food, housing, and jobs, as well as establishing schools, hospitals, and a court system. Depicts a simply furnished attic room where an African American man, portrayed in racist caricature, ties his tie as he stands beside his bed and before his dresser/bureau. Atop the bureau, which has its top drawer open, is a stand with a broken mirror upon which you see the man's reflection. A portrait of Lincoln and a bow and fiddle hang on the wall. His overcoat and hat rest on a chair with a broken back behind him., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress in the year A.D. 1868 by Currier & Ives in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York., Purchase 1968., 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 Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Worth was a comic and genre artist whose popular work was published by the lithographic firm Currier & Ives.
Creator
Worth, Thomas, 1834-1917, artist
Date
1868
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1868-2W [7687.F]
The man that blocks up the highway [graphic].
Title
The man that blocks up the highway
Description
Cartoon satirizing President Andrew Johnson and his reconstruction policies as sympathetic to Southerners and an obstruction to Radical Republican policies and African American civil rights. Depicts Johnson with jackass ears standing at a road block labeled "veto" and greeting pardoned former Confederates, including an unrepentant white man counterfeiter and two white men ruffians. The ruffians brag about the murder of major-generals, curse the Yankees, and threaten an overthrow of the North and nullification of civil rights after the re-establishment of a Southern presence in the Congress. As Johnson welcomes the Southerners, he orders Secretary of State William Seward, attired as a servant, to pass around whiskey, belittles the barred "Radical Republicans," and boasts about his veto power. Behind the "veto" barricade, carriages driven by Republicans and labeled "Freedman's Bu[reau]," "Civil Rights," and "[Recon]struction," including one attended by an African American man portrayed in racist caricature, stand idle (an allusion to Johnson's vetoes of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the renewal of the Freedman's Bureau). The drivers compare Johnson with Marc Anthony who was "blowing before the People about his great love for the Constitution while conspiring with Caesar for the overthrow of the Republic." In the right, near crates of "Southern Appointments" and "Southern Pardons," John Bull and French dictator Napoleon III stand. Napoleon praises Johnson, proclaiming him "Emperor Americane." Also includes, a shack adorned with the sign "Andy Johnson Tribune of the People" in the background., Title from item., Date inferred from content., 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., 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 Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date
[1866]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1866-5W [5760.F.111]