Ground Hog Day's Sneak Peek

January, 2025

Part 2 of the visit from Max's mom is coming up this week; and at this point it might be relevant to remind loyal readers that she perhaps lives in or around Washington, D.C.

P.S. FDT.

...and Farewell

"Columbia proved unequal to Uncle Sam and gradually was replaced as a common cartoon character." — The Ungentlemanly Art, Stephen Hess and Milton Kaplan, 1968

Today's Graphical History Tour continues following the career of Lady Columbia into the 20th Century.

"Pan-American Puck" by Samuel Ehrart in Puck, May 8, 1901

As the personification of the nation, Lady Columbia was riding high at the turn of the century. She welcomed South America to the 1901 Pan-American exposition in Buffalo, New York (where President McKinley would be assassinated).

Ehrart's cartoon illustrated the host nation's hope that, in the words of Puck's editors,

"We have extended our trade horizon to include the Antipodes, but we have not yet secured the trade of our nearest neighbors. Central and South America still find reasons for going elsewhere to do most of their shopping. The weightiest of these reasons have to do with a certain protective tariff, and the disposition of them must await the enlightenment of a certain majority of the voters,— a condition happily promising for the near future. ... Incidentally we shall become better acquainted with the resources of our own island possessions and give their people, perhaps, a more favorable view of their relationship to us than they have thus far been able to gather."

"A Fair Return" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner,  August 15, 1917

World War I raged in Europe for three years before the U.S. entered the fray. Dutch cartoonist Louis Raemaekers welcomed U.S. entry into World War I by depicting Lady Columbia embracing Marianne, the personification of France, telling her, "When I was a child it was you who saved me."

Columbia's gown doesn't have the usual flag motif in Raemaekers cartoon — perhaps because white stars are hard to draw in charcoal.

"It's a Great Day for America" by Albert T. Reid in National Republican, Nov. 3, 1920

The stars and stripes are back in Albert Reid's cartoon. Lady Columbia, here updating her wardrobe from the robes of classical Rome to congratulate President-elect Warren Harding, was often enlisted to welcome a new administration to office.

"My Harp Is Also Turned to Mourning" by Gennette in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sept. 7, 1901

One of Lady Columbia's chief roles in editorial cartoons was as chief mourner for the country. Cartoonists drew her grieving at the deaths of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley (in this case), Harding, and the Roosevelts, as well as other prominent figures in the news. 

"Columbia's Anguish" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Jan. 30, 1922

Here she mourned collapse of the Knickerbocker Theater in the nation's capital that killed 98. It is possible that Berryman drew this particular Columbia to represent the District of Columbia, where the tragedy occurred, instead of the bespectacled and bewigged 18th-Century gentleman that he usually drew to represent the capital city. This Columbia lacks the Phrygian cap and wears full-length mourning black.

"Hail and Farewell" by Clyde Batchelor in Washington Times-Herald, April 13, 1945

Every reference I have found about Miss Columbia agrees that she went out of fashion sometime in the 1920's, Uncle Sam, the Statie of Liberty, and the eagle becoming the go-to cartoon personifications of the United States. 

I did find this 1945 Batchelor cartoon of her paying her respects to Franklin Delano Roosevelt upon his death the day before. Perhaps because Batchelor disagreed with much of FDR's policy (his April 12 cartoon accused the administration of covering up warnings of the attack on Pearl Harbor), his Columbia isn't racked with grief she typically was for earlier fallen presidents.

Looking back at my post a few years ago of cartoons drawn after President McKinley's assassination, whereas Columbia knelt in grief, it was Uncle Sam who meted stern justice to the assassin.

Today, Lady Columbia would be horrified and ashamed of the present government’s wanton murder and disappearing of its citizens. What would Uncle Sam be doing?

"His 146th Birthday" by Charles Kuhn in Indianapolis News, July 4, 1922

One does notice Columbia fading into the background, cartoon-wise. At the nation's 146th birthday, she serves the cake; but it's Uncle Sam's birthday, not hers, even though he was at most a mere 110 years old.

"Uncle Sam Will Take a Little of the Stuffing" by Wm. A. Rogers in Washington Post, Nov. 26, 1925

At Thanksgiving, Columbia serves the dinner, and while Uncle Sam frets that he'll have to settle for a little stuffing, there doesn't even appear to be a seat for her at the table. Unless a chair is hidden behind that turkey, Lady Columbia must have been demoted to kitchen staff.

"Why Not Flowers for the Living, Too" by Winsor McCay for Hearst newspapers, May 30, 1925

Would Uncle Sam deliver a bouquet of flowers to wounded veterans?

One theory is that Columbia as a cartoon character fell into disuse in the 1920's once she became the mascot for Columbia Pictures. Columbia Pictures wasn't named after her directly; the movie company was a division of Columbia Records, which was originally headquartered in the District of Columbia.

"Some Day They'll Come Crawling Back to Her" by Joseph Parrish in Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1948

Last week's post began with a cartoon of a female "America Triumphant" drawn before she was given the name Columbia, so we'll end here with one of that familiar lady, back in her liberty cap and Romanesque robe, but without the name coined by Edward Cave over two centuries before.

Q Toon: Mama Comes to Visit

Please enjoy a respite from the news of the day. I'll explain later.

MAGA Max and Liberal Leo are back this week, along with Max's mother and their Dog To Be Named Later. (Max's mom's name is Karen, by the way. Because of course it is.)

I guess Max has told Karen that he and Leo are part of the trend I've heard about of friends buying homes together because of the sky-high cost of mortgages these days. Young people were renting together before Friends was a thing, which they could work around when one of them took a job out of town or got married. Deciding what's fair when co-owners are confronted with one or the other of those inevitabilities could be just as thorny as if they were a married couple.

Well, I've never specified whether Max and Leo have a legal union; but I'm pretty sure that Max is insinuating to his mother a little white lie about where he sleeps.

To be continued...

The 2-Point Conversion of St. Paul's Sneak Peek

I'm introducing a new character into the Max & Leo series this week. It's a two-parter, and probably not a three-week series, since, as Benjamin Franklin once quoted Jonah's Nineveh hosts, "Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."

By the way, I've got to take care of a little editorial housekeeping here. In Saturday’s Graphical History post, I asserted that the first cartoon appearance of Uncle Sam was in 1832, and it behooves me to back up that claim in case some artificially intelligent future researcher ever credits me as an authority. 

My reference is The Ungentlemanly Art: The History of American Editorial Cartoons by Stephen Hess and David Kaplan (1968), which in turn cites The Rise and Fall of Cartoon Symbols by William Murrell in The American Scholar, Summer, 1935, pp. 310-311. The text of the Hess-Kaplan book (page 35) says that the cartoon below was published in 1832; the citation in the index (page 178) says it was in 1834.

"Uncle Sam in Danger," cartoonist unknown, 1832 or 1834

I think you'll agree that this is not an Uncle Sam readers today would recognize if he weren't named in the cutline.

Hail, Columbia...

Today's Graphical History Tour was inspired by a reader who was curious about the cartoon figure of Miss (sometimes Lady) Columbia.

"America Triumphant and Britannia in Distress" 1782

In the Eighteenth Century, European cartoonists represented the American colonies, later the United States, with a Native American woman, or at least what they imagined Native American women to look like. I’ve seen that personification used in a very few German cartoons as late as 1920; but White Americans preferred seeing their nation represented by White cartoon characters.

European cartoonists were quick to oblige, almost as soon as the ink was dry on Cornwallis’s surrender. “America Triumphant” predates Lady Columbia, but served as a model for her: neoclassical Greco-Roman clothing similar to Brittania’s, plus the liberty cap that would later be the hallmark of revolutionary France’s Marianne.

"Columbia Teaching John Bull a New Lesson" by William Charles, 1813

The name Columbia has been traced to The Gentleman's Magazine's accounts, begun in 1738, of Parliamentary proceedings by Edward Cave. To get around a British law prohibiting accounts of Parliamentary debates, Cave substituted nicknames for persons and places: instead of “America,” he coined the name “Columbia.”

Uncle Sam came along much later. His name originated sometime around the War of 1812, and he first appeared in a political cartoon in 1832. His features evolved from another early cartoon personification of Americans, Brother Jonathan; but the characterization you might recognize only develops around the time of the Civil War. 

"Mistress Columbia, Who Has Been Taking a Nap," in Harper's Weekly, ca. 1860

In general, Brother Jonathan represented the American people, Uncle Sam represented the government in Washington, and Lady Columbia represented the U.S. as a nation. Brother Jonathan could be a wise-ass, but Lady Columbia was always quite serious.

"The Spirit of '61," 1861

Before James Montgomery Flagg painted Uncle Sam wanting you to serve in World War I, Columbia recruited soldiers to come to her defense in the Civil War. I have not been able to discover who created this recruitment poster.

"Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Dinner" by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, Nov. 20, 1868

Columbia and Uncle Sam both appeared in this postbellum cartoon by Thomas Nast. She was seated in the foreground between the Black and Chinese Americans at Nast's Thanksgiving table (greatly exaggerating any welcome and promise of freedom and equality the United States offered persons of those two ethnicities).

"The Right Kind of Valentine," in Canadian Illustrated News, Feb. 18, 1871

Columbia had "reciprocity" behind her back in this cartoon in Miss Canada handed her a valentine reading "Freedom of fisheries," a contentious issue between the two nations for years. Curiously, the cartoonist decided that neither Uncle Sam or Johnny Canuck were appropriate for a cartoon about piscine love notes.

"That's a Pretty Chicken" by Joseph Keppler in Puck, 1872

Columbia could register shock and alarm, as in this Keppler cartoon expressing disappointment with proposed civil service reforms.

"Auch eine Tätowierte" by Joseph Keppler in Puck, Nov. 1, 1876

In another Keppler cartoon, "Also a Tattooed Woman" (in the German language edition of Puck), Columbia's shame was laid bare.  tattooed with Corruption, Tammany (New York City's Democratic headquarters), the Crédit Mobilier scandal, Civil War, taxes, Black Friday, Whiskey Ring, Election Frauds, and plenty more. The caption under  indicates that Columbia was not a willing recipient of her tattoos; similarly themed cartoons of Uncle Sam left open the possibility that he might have foolishly submitted to the inkster's ministrations.

"Columbia's Unwelcome Guests" by Frank Beard in Judge, Feb. 7, 1885

Frank Beard drew this version of a more determined Columbia offering a firm KEEP OUT to immigrants arriving on her shores with their strange ideas and drinking habits. It could be your own great-great-great-great grandparents Beard drew streaming out of Europe's sewers. Maybe even Stephen Miller's.

"A Disgusting and Scandalous Condition of Affairs" by Unknown cartoonist, 1899

Here is a cartoon that illustrated the relationship between Lady Columbia and Uncle Sam: she gives the orders to him to do something about the Army beef scandal (meat issued to soldiers in the Spanish-American War with embalming fluid added to it to slow spoilage). Uncle Sam appears slow to act, however; "How long are you going to sit here idle?" she scolds him.

Neither Grainger nor Alamy credit the artist or publication of this cartoon.

"Darned If I Can Have Any Fun" by E.T. Richards in Life, July 5, 1900

After the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American war put the U.S. in charge of Spain's former colonies in the Caribbean and the Philippines, Lady Columbia and Uncle Sam both appear uncomfortable in their new role as imperial powers in E.T. Richards's cartoon.

Come back next Saturday, as we follow the fortunes of Lady Columbia into the Twentieth Century.

Q Toon: None Taken

The Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a pair of cases over transgender student athletes' rights in Idaho and West Virginia. The two states are among several Republican-run states with blanket bans prohibiting transgender youth from participating in school athletics.

That the present Republican majority will rule against the two girls is sadly a foregone conclusion; the only suspense is whether their ruling will be so broad as to prevent transgender students from athletic activities anywhere, or so narrow as to apply only to Idaho and West Virginia.

The primary concern of the majority justices appears to be how the lawyers arguing on behalf of the two athletes want to define what a female is and whether laws prohibiting gender discrimination apply to that definition. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are predictably hostile to non-cisgender, non-heterosexual plaintiffs, but former girls’ basketball coach Brett Kavanaugh took a moment to offer sympathy to transgender student athletes. That sympathy, however, is countered by his sympathy for hypothetical cisgender student athletes who don't make the team:

“I hate–hate that a kid who wants to play sports might not be able to play sports. I hate that,” Kavanaugh said. “But … it’s kind of a zero-sum game for a lot of teams. And someone who tries out and makes it, who is a transgender girl, will bump from the starting lineup, from playing time, from the team, from the all league, and those things matter to people big time, will bump someone else.”

“We have to recognize on both sides the zero-sum. It’s not like, ‘Oh, just add another person to the team.’ That’s not how sports works. ... Someone else is going to get disadvantaged.”

It’s a shame that there isn’t enough room on a team’s bench for everybody who was promised a seat.

MLK Day's Sneak Peek

On this Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2026, it's worth remembering the words of the prophet:

"We shall have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." — quoted in Concise Dictionary of Religious Quotations, W. Neil, ed.