Documenting United States History

310 ChapTEr 13 | a Gilded aGe | period Six 1865 –1898

Document 13.3 JoSEPH KEPPlER, “Bosses of the Senate,”

Puck

1889

The magazine Puck published political satire during the last quarter of the nineteenth

century. The cartoon below, like most of the images in Puck, reflects contemporary con-

cerns and anxieties.

p raCTICINg historical Thinking

Identify: Which figures in this cartoon are most prominent? What do they rep-

resent? What details explain what they represent?

Analyze: What is the relationship between the larger and the smaller men in this

picture? What does this depiction tell you about the artist’s perception of business

and government at the time?

Evaluate: Satire is the use of humor, irony, ridicule, or exaggeration as a form of

criticism. Does this image distort the relationship between big business and the US

government? Explain.

Document 13.4 New year’s Greetings in Puck

1898

This New Year’s cartoon in the popular humorous magazine Puck features a departing

1897 and an incoming 1898.

TopIC I | the New economy 311

the Granger Collection, New York.

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