A.B. Frost’s “The Intelligent American Voter”, 1875
For my final non-partisan Monday, we present the November 2nd, 1875 front page of the New York Daily Graphic — artist A.B. Frost’s The Intelligent American Voter. Enjoy, and Vote Often! Click on the below picture, to open a larger version. To find previously posted Election Cartoons, click here. Doug Wheeler ElectionCartoons NYDailyGraphic
Buying Congress
Thanks to “Citizens United”, a secretly funded group whose petition before our conservative activist Supreme Court, resulted a century’s worth of election reforms being thrown away, corporations have free reign to anonymously use all the money they wish to, to influence elections. Corporations do not spend money unless they believe it will profit them. They are [...]
Episode 10.5: C.J. Taylor’s 1881-82 William Vanderbilt Comic Strips: “The Public Be Damned!”, Part 2
From the October 18th, 1882 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic, artist Charles Jay Taylor takes a second poke at William Vanderbilt, for his “The public be damned” comment. (To see the first poke, click here.) Taylor shows Vanderbilt standing atop a pyramid of human beings, whose efforts support him. His trains are approaching from all directions, entering [...]
Episode 10: C.J. Taylor’s 1881-82 William Vanderbilt Comic Strips: “The Public Be Damned!”, Part 1
The past two weekends, we saw comics about The Disaster in the Fourth Avenue Tunnel, wherein William Vanderbilt is confronted with the collision of two passenger trains on his railroad lines, with resultant death and injuries. His reluctance to spend money on safety measures — as doing so would cut into profits — were blamed as the cause (an [...]
Episode 9.5: William Vanderbilt Comic Strips, E.W. Kemble Slips In, 1882
On September 23rd, 1882 — one day after the New York Daily Graphic published Charles Jay Taylor’s strip A Sporting Connoisseur (presented yesterday), showing William Vanderbilt having a fun time racing his horses — the New York Times published the article A Collision in the Dark — Terrible Accident in a Hudson River Railroad Tunnel, detailing a fatal [...]
C.J. Taylor’s 1881-82 William Vanderbilt Comic Strips, Episode 9
To recap what this series is, for those who may just be finding this website… In the years 1881 and 1882, artist Charles Jay Taylor created a series of approximately one dozen sequential comic strips featuring as the main character, railroad monopolist and stock market manipulator, William H. Vanderbilt. These appeared on the front page [...]
William Vanderbilt: “He Gathers Them In”, by A.B. Frost, 1878
The below A.B. Frost cartoon — He Gathers Them In — appeared on the the front page of the December 19, 2025 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic. In it, railroad baron William Vanderbilt is shown as a vagabond walking along the train tracks. On his back, he carries a sack filled with train cars, track, [...]
Keeping Cool: C.M. Coolidge, and Hopkins at the Daily Graphic Office
The variety of methods for keeping cool before the age of air-conditioning, could be an endless source of inspiration for early cartoonists (who, due to the nature of deadlines, may have been producing these in the winter!) Below, from 1883, a series of trade cards by one of our eternal favorites, Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, who is [...]
A Horrible Monster, July 19, 1880: The Standard Oil Company
As I write this, the blown out deep ocean BP Oil well in the Gulf has currently been capped. But, the apocalyptic destruction caused by the oil already sent into the ocean, hasn’t even begun to show its full face. With the majority of the released oil floating beneath the ocean surface, it won’t be until next year, when [...]
Episode 8.5: C.J. Taylor’s 1881-82 William Vanderbilt Comic Strips
Today’s episode — A Disinterested Friend of the Public, from the front page of the May 2nd, 1882 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic — I’ve labeled Episode 8.5 (rather than “9″) of Charles Jay Taylor’s series of sequential comic strips starring William H. Vanderbilt, because it’s a single panel cartoon. But being produced by Taylor within [...]
