A strike! A strike! [graphic] / C.
Title
A strike! A strike!
Description
Anti-labor union cartoon satirizing the several New York workers' strikes for higher wages in early 1836 during a harsh winter; a period of severe inflation, including exorbitant market prices; and an era of property speculation. Depicts livestock on strike for a higher market value near fish peddlers attired in winter garb, including two African American shellfish vendors. Animals include a Tom turkey ordering a turkey hen not to sell her young ones because "gobblers will bring twenty shillings and hens fifteen"; hens refusing to lay eggs for "less than four pence a piece"; a pig holding a banner inscribed "Hams 15 cents per lb exclaiming "I shall Jew them out of a shilling a pound"; an indignant lamb and calf conferring about their deserved increased prices per pound; and a confident steer exhorting the range of high prices for ordinary beef, corn fed beef, and beef shins. In the foreground, two African American men vendors get advice from two African American marketers, portrayed in racist caricature and speaking in the vernacular, about oysters unable to "strike for de frost" and that "gemmen" will not buy open mouthed clams. A white man fish peddler hawks his bass at "whole for two shilling de pound" and cut at "tree shillin" to a white gentleman inquiring about fresh fish. In the right, a barking dog sits on his "House to let. Inquire No. 48 Courtlandt St." (address of publisher) and comments "I feel like a savage! this is all contrary to law," probably an allusion to the "Geneva ruling" of 1835 by the New York state supreme court, which proclaimed unions and strikes forbidden by law., Title from item., Artist's initial lower left corner., Publication information from Weitenkampf., Copyright statement printed on recto: Entered according to act of Congress in the Year 1836, by H.R. Robinson, in the clerk's office of the District Court of the United States of the Southern District of New York., Described in Nancy Reynolds Davison's "E.W. Clay: American political caricaturist of the Jacksonian era" (PhD diss., The University of Michigan, 1980), p. 164-165., Purchase 2003., 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.
Creator
Clay, Edward Williams, 1799-1857, artist
Date
[March 1836]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1836 - 1w [P.2003.40.1]