Drawn From the Past

Benjamin Franklin published this cartoon in his Pennsylvania newspaper in 1754, just before the French and Indian War (1754-63). Depicting the colonies as disconnected pieces of a snake, it urges unity. Roughly two decades later, it became a symbol of the American Revolution.

Abraham  Lincoln was a month away from his inauguration as president in 1861 when a newsmagazine published this cartoon. It shows Lincoln trying to repair a split cabinet labeled “South” and “North” with a bucket of “Union Glue.” (By the time Lincoln took the oath of office, he was sporting a beard, at the suggestion of an 11-year-old girl who had written to him.)

This 1899 cartoon appeared in the humor magazine Puck during a period of increased immigration to the U.S. from Southern and Eastern Europe. Titled “The Hyphenated American,” it shows Uncle Sam looking on angrily as some of these new arrivals—including Irish-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans—line up to vote. The image reflects the resentment some U.S.-born Americans felt toward immigrant access to the ballot box, as they feared losing their political power.    

In 1917, the women’s suffrage movement was gaining momentum, with activists holding the first protest on the White House lawn. This cartoon appeared in a satirical magazine that March, showing suffragists steamrolling their opposition. Officially, women across the nation gained the right to vote in 1920, with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

President Lyndon B. Johnson sent U.S. combat troops to fight in the Vietnam War in 1965—a decision that would later make him so unpopular he’d decline to run for re-election. This Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoon, published during the war, shows Johnson sinking into “Vietnam quicksand” as he smiles at news of a potential peace.