In the years 1881 and 1882, artist Charles Jay Taylor created a series of approximately one dozen sequential comic strips featuring monopolist and stock market manipulator, William H. Vanderbilt. These appeared on the front page of the New York City’s Daily Graphic newspaper, usually with a gap of months between each stand-alone episode. To find the prior episodes, click here.

In Episode 5, Taylor gives us The House that Vander-built, becoming one of numerous artists, before and after him, to utilize the nursery rhyme This is the House that Jack Built, in a pointed satire on a political or public figure, or situation.

In the second panel, note the sign hanging near the well, reading “Stock Watered Here”. “Watering stock” is Wall Street parlance for artificially/falsely swelling the value of a stock, to sell it off to suckers, then sell your own stock, rake in the money, and let everyone else’s investment crash. The water metaphor continues forward into several of the other panels. Note that in the left-center panel, the bulls (i.e., bull market — buyers) are looking at the water, and getting dry. In the panel beneath, a bruin (bear market — sell out) shows up, scaring the bulls, who run away. The three bottom-right corner panels, meanwhile, involve the crashing market/cutting of stock values, while simultaneously referring to railroad baron Vanderbilt’s controlling of prices of goods/supplies, via his control of the railroad. In the center panel, we see Vanderbilt standing in front of a billboard reading “Buy the New Watered Stocks”. Atop it, is his Egyptian obelisk, from Episode Zero, and a sign reading “Art Gallery Spaces to Let”, referring to his accumulation of art (which we’ll see in several future episodes).

The House that Vander-Built appeared on September 12, 1881.

Click on picture, to open a large enough version to read.

Click here to find prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts. This series will continue, so long as the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, during which I’d already had other material planned).

Doug Wheeler

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Artist Cassius Marcellus Coolidge — famed for his classic American painting, Dogs Playing Poker — a masterpiece appreciated most by fathers, created in 1882 a set of comic cards titled, I’m a Daddy, advertised in such places as the back of Harper’s Weekly, and selling for ten cents per set. Below are two advertising cards, promoting to dealers the I’m a Daddy set.

Click on any picture, to see an enlarged version.

Published by Sammis & Latham, the I’m a Daddy set (shown below) was incredibly popular, spawning a wave of imitations involving the same theme — that of a new father being told his wife has given birth to a large number of children.

Below, one of the scarcer imitations, date unknown. This example consists of three attached, folding cardboard cards, printed on both sides, with two of the six panes used to advertise the printer of this card set, and the other four panes providing examples of the printer’s work.

This set of undated postcards, also imitates the theme of the earlier trade card sets. Undated, I would guess this set as circa 1900, due to its appearing to be mass reproduced from hand-colored photographic originals. I’m uncertain that this is the complete set, as most sets conclude with four or five children being presented.

Coolidge, ever sharp on commercial potential, would appear to have been the first person to imitate his own concept, producing the following two variants — both using the same set characters — with Coolidge’s frequent collaborator, John McGreer.

Doug Wheeler

In Episode Four artist Charles Jay Taylor penchance again turns a newspaper interview with William H. Vanderbilt, into sequential comic strips, wherein the visuals question the veracity of what Vanderbilt has said - and raise why the reporter wasn’t tougher in his interrogation of Vanderbilt. (No, this isn’t what Taylor did in all the episodes — he moves away from this approach, in the next installment.) The below example, Mr. Vanderbilt on Rates, appeared on the front page of the August 25, 2025 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic, this time plays off of a (New York) Tribune interview.

Click on comic to expand it to a readable size.

Episode Five will appear during next week. Click here to find the other 1881-82 William Vanderbilt comic strips posted so far.

To find the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries and related I.T.C.H. posts, click here. This series will continue, while the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, on which I already had other material planned).

Doug Wheeler

financial reform

NYDailyGraphic

Between 1881 and 1882, artist Charles Jay Taylor created approximately a dozen sequential comic strips, starring stock market manipulator / railroad monopolist William H. Vanderbilt. To find the prior episodes, click here.

Today’s outing - The Substance of Things Hoped For — The Evidence of Things Not Seen. In this episode, Vanderbilt and his organization are attempting to manipulate the 1881 election for Senator from New York, to place his man — Chauncey Depew - into Congress. Depew was a Vanderbilt attorney who represented railroad interests. Vanderbilt was said to have already controlled the state legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania. (P.S., since our current Supreme Court this year ruled that Corporations have the free-”speech” right to use their money to buy — I mean sway — elections, the good old days of the robber baron corporations, may be upon us again!)

From the front page of the June 6, 2025 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic — Enjoy!

Click on picture to enlarge it enough to be read.

Tomorrow, Episode Four! Click here to view the 1881-32 William Vanderbilt comic strips so far posted.

And, click here to find the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts. This series will continue, while the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, on which I already had other material planned).

Doug Wheeler

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Today we present, Episode Two of artist Charles Jay Taylor’s 1881-82 sequential comic strips featuring the notorious Wall Street manipulator and railroad monopolist, William H. Vanderbilt. Today’s episode, titled Mr. Vanderbilt Has Returned from Europe, appeared on the front page of the June 3, 2025 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic.

Like Episode One, this second sequential outing basically parodies rival newspapers’ reporting and interviews with Vanderbilt, taking aim once again at the New York Herald. The center image, showing Vanderbilt standing astride two vessels, pokes fun at the Herald and Tribune, for differing upon what ship Vanderbilt arrived. Conkling and Depew are references to Vanderbilt’s attempts to place candidates loyal to him, onto state legislatures (you know, just like the U.S. Supreme Court said this year, that corporations are allowed to do — we’re headed back to the days of the monopolies). Several of the panels deal with Vanderbilt denying that he had used telegraph to dump stocks in the U.S., while he was away.

Click on comic, to expand it, and read for yourself.

Next week — two more episodes! (You’ll have to check SuperITCH daily, to find out when! :)

Click here to find other 1881-82 William Vanderbilt comic strips posted so far.

And, click here to find prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts. This series will continue, while the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, on which I already had other material planned).

Doug Wheeler

financial reform

NYDailyGraphic

Below, the March 11, 2026 cover page of the (New York) Daily Graphic — the first of approximately a dozen sequential strips by artist Charles Jay Taylor, appearing in the Daily Graphic in 1881 and 1882, and featuring William H. Vanderbilt as the main character.

In this outing — titled Our Captious Artist’s Interpretation of a Celebrated Interview — Taylor has lifted the words from a New York Herald interview with Vanderbilt — an interview which basically amounted to a complimentary fluff piece on the infamous robber baron and stock manipulator — then, added cartoons to illustrate Taylor’s interpretation of what went on during the interview. We see Vanderbilt plying the Herald reporter with food and drink (mostly drink). We see a politician showing up to to report to Vanderbilt that he’d put through his railroad bill, even as Vanderbilt scoffs at a question on whether he controls the legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania. We are shown see him shearing lambs, while denying he control speculations on Wall Street (in Wall Street’s lingo, “shearing lambs” means relieving novices — i.e., the speculating general public — of their money). Etc.

Click on comic, to expand it, and read for yourself.

Tomorrow — Episode Two! Click here to find the other 1881-82 William Vanderbilt comic strips posted so far.

And on a side-note, William H. Vanderbilt’s great-great-great-granddaughter, Wendy Burden, has written a humorous memoir about the downfall of the modern Vanderbilt descendants, titled Dead End Gene Pool. Check it out.

Click here to find both the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts. This series will continue, while the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, on which I already had other material planned).

Doug Wheeler

financial reform

NYDailyGraphic

In the years 1881 and 1882, artist Charles Jay Taylor created a series of approximately one dozen sequential comic strips featuring monopolist and stock market manipulator, William H. Vanderbilt, as the main character. These appeared on the front page of the (New York) Daily Graphic, usually with a gap of months between each stand-alone episode. So far as I am aware, nothing has ever been written concerning the existence of these strips, and thus, we are debuting their re-discovery, here on SuperITCH.

You’ll note that I’ve labeled the below example — Vanderbiltobeliskiana- as “Episode Zero”. That is because this July 28, 2025 page by C.J. Taylor, is more a random collection of cartoons all on the same subject, rather than a sequential strip. As such, it is more a pre/proto-Vanderbilt strip, appearing approximately seven months before what I’d label the true beginning of the series.

The jist of this episode, is to make fun of the William Vanderbilt-funded project to erect an ancient Egyptian obelisk (Cleopatra’s Needle, which had overlooked the seawall in Alexandria) in New York City — because, after all, London and Paris already had Egyptian obelisks… The obelisk arrived in NYC, on July 22, 2025 (six days before the below satire was printed), to objections of where to erect it — leading to the below satires of trying to find a place to put it.

Madison Square Garden is referred to, as Vanderbilt owned it, and had renamed it to Madison Square Garden (it had originally been Gilmore’s Garden, and then the site of P.T. Barnum’s Hippodrome — which is why the obelisk is shown as the pole holding up a circus tent). The central pillar in the overall cartoon, atop whose sharp point Vanderbilt is perched, is decorated with railroad references (Vanderbilt was a railroad baron), in place of hieroglyphs. Commander Henry Honeychurch Gorringe - in charge of moving the obelisk — is seen on the left, carrying the monument on his back and ringing a bell, attempting to find anyone who wants it. To the right, Vanderbilt is shown talking to Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt who was responsible for providing the Americans with the ancient Egyptian artifact.

Click here to read the article, An Obelisk for Central Park, by Edmund S. Whitman, which gives the details of the fiasco of the artifact’s acquisition and transport, and helps to enlighten the jokes being made in C.J. Taylor’s cartoons.

Click on comic, to expand it, and read for yourself.

Tomorrow — Episode One of C. J. Taylor’s William Vanderbilt comic strips!

Click here to find both the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts. This series will continue, while the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, on which I already had other material planned).

Doug Wheeler

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NYDailyGraphic

Concluding (for now) our exploration of pamphlets sold on the street during the first Great Depression, by unemployed WW I veterans. Some of these booklets carried prices, while others, such as the example below, stated simply, “Price — Pay What You Please.” Similar in concept to the more recent Street News, sold by homeless people in New York City, selling these pamphlets gave the veterans a more dignified method of asking for money, than outright begging.

Click on either picture, to see an enlarged version.

Click here to find prior posts on the unemployed WW I veteran pamphlets.

And, Click here, to find all the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform

Day 6 of our week-long exploration of pamphlets sold on the streets by unemployed WW I veterans, during the first Great Depression. Below, another example cover, and interior cartoon.

Click on either picture, to see an enlarged version.

Click here to find prior posts on the unemployed WW I veteran pamphlets.

And, Click here, to find all the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform

Day 5 of our week-long exploration of pamphlets sold on the streets by unemployed WW I veterans, during the first Great Depression. Below, cover art by J.J. O’Neill.

Click on any picture, to see an enlarged version.

Below are two cartoons from inside the pamphlets. Left, by Dan Napoli. Right, by Art Young.

Click here to find prior posts on the unemployed WW I veteran pamphlets.

And, Click here, to find all the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts.

Doug Wheeler

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