Binghamton Clothing Factory Fire: Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons #118
This week is the 100th Anniversary of the July 22nd, 1913 Binghamton Clothing Factory Fire, in which 31 lost their lives. Not nearly as famous as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire two years earlier, it nevertheless emphasized that safety reforms, not yet passed because of resistance by factory owners that worker safety was too much [...]
Electricity at Christmas, 1879: Tigwissel Tuesdays #43
Above, The March of Science: Electricity at Christmas, by artist Harry Furniss, from the 1879 Christmas issue of The Illustrated London News. At this time, electricity — on the brink of lighting cities — was still more a toy of the rich, used in parlor games. One popular activity, shown at the bottom, was to [...]
Wall Street Panics & Collapses: Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons #107
Using mostly cartoons shown over the course of our Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons run, plus a scattering of a few new ones, we have a brief review in pictures, of Wall Street Crashes & Panics, from mid-19th Century, up through Great Depression I. The upcoming election pits one candidate who is a millionaire [...]
Tigwissel Tuesdays #10: Professor Tigwissel’s Burglar Alarm, September 11th, 1875
We come now, to the moment of some gnashing of teeth. Professor Tigwissel’s Burglar Alarm. Published on the front page of the September 11th, 1875 edition of the (New York) Daily Graphic. The fifth published appearance of artist Livingston Hopkins’ recurring comic strip character, Professor Tigwissel. Let me repeat for emphasis — the fifth appearance. [...]
Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons, Part 01: “Capital One Million”, Financial Fraud Parody, 1856
Bank frauds and Wall Street swindles, resulting in economic ruin for everyone else, were regular and frequent occurrences prior to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s institution of laws designed to prevent further Great Depressions. These regulations worked until, starting in the 1980s, conservatives began dismantling those protections, stating that we’d be better off with an unfettered and unregulated market, free to do whatever it [...]
Florence Claxton’s c1870s “The Adventures of a Woman in Search of Her Rights”, Part 4
Our presentation of Florence Anne Claxton’s comic novel, The Adventures of a Woman in Search of Her Rights, concludes. In last Monday’s installment, our heroine takes her seat in Parliament, presents before it Bills, and is promptly tossed out. Rejecting suit by a widower (who has six children), she next pursues a career as an [...]
