Episode 8: 1881-82 Comic Strips Featuring William Vanderbilt, by C.J. Taylor: Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons, Part 63
In Bon Voyage — Episode 8 of artist Charles Jay Taylor’s 1881-82 series of sequential comic strips starring railroad baron and stock market manipulator, William H. Vanderbilt, appearing on the front page of the April 22, 2026 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic - Vanderbilt is shown heading off for a trip to Europe, to supposedly recover his health. He is seen in the dominant panel (bottom left), using two canes to stand as he looks upon a painting of his healthier self, stating:
“Good-bye, old feller. You always looked good in that act of supporting the market. Now I’m sick, and the market has got to support me.”
In that painting, dated as having been painted a month earlier, Vanderbilt is shown lifting weights with the names of some of his railroads on them (“Lake Shore”, “N.Y. Central”, “Harlem”). A plaque on the painting reads, “W.H. Vanderbilt in his heroic act of supporting the market”. Lying on the floor beneath the painting, representing Vanderbilt’s collecting of art in the aesthetic movement, is pictured a sunflower. Vanderbilt had been showing instead wearing the sunflower, in recent strips. Taylor is obviously playing on the irony of Vanderbilt supporting, as opposed to controlling, the market.
In the bottom right panel, we see Vanderbilt still devoted to painting, but, his subjects are commodities whose prices he has been interfering with (the latest being wheat). Crop price manipulating is referred to in the first two panels as well, where he is seen with Russell Sage. Sage (a fellow stock market schemer) is poked fun at for what was regarded then as his insincere philanthropy and church attendance (given the ruin he caused others in the market).
In yet another panel, cartoonist Taylor implies yet again, that Vanderbilt has left an illegitimate baby under the care of Rufus Hatch (while this pops up in a number of Taylor’s strips, I’ve found no references to such a child elsewhere).
Click on picture, to open a version large enough to read.
Next week, during the San Diego Comic Con, we’ll have not only another sequential episode by C.J. Taylor, but also Vanderbilt pages by Kemble and Frost. To find the previous 1881-82 William Vanderbilt comic strip episodes, click here.
And, 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 Wall Street/financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, during which I already had other material planned).
financial reform NYDailyGraphic
— Doug
