POLITICAL CARTOONS

 

The Follies of the Age, Vive La Humbug!! ([Philadelphia, 1855]). Crayon lithograph.

 

Lithography quickly became the standard medium for political cartoons. The versatility and speed of drawing on stone allowed caricaturists a wider range for “creative” depictions of their satiric subjects and for the more timely production of their political and social commentaries. This satire mocks not an individual, but the peculiar social climate in the city during 1855. Subjects include the Jane Johnson fugitive slave case and the crash on the Camden Amboy railroad near Burlington, New Jersey, the focus of its own lithograph drawn by John Collins and printed by Thomas Sinclair in 1855.

 

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