Life on the Press: The Popular Art and Illustrations of George Benjamin Luks

Life on the Press

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Robert L. Gambone

Life on the Press The Popular Art and Illustrations of George Benjamin Luks

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

Publication of this book was made possible in part by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

www.upress.state.ms.us Designed by Todd Lape ἀ e University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Copyright © 2009 by University Press of Mississippi All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing 2009 ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gambone, Robert L., 1949– Life on the press : the popular art and illustrations of George Benjamin Luks / Robert L. Gambone. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60473-222-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Luks, George Benjamin, 1867–1933— Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. NC975.5.L85G36 2009 759.13—dc22

20080 47068

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

To Brady and Hayley May they grow in a knowledge and love of art

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Contents

Preface [ ix ]

Chapter One [ 3 ]

A Luks Biography The Context of His Graphic Art

Chapter Two [ 47 ]

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Chapter Three [ 86 ]

Life on the Press Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Chapter Four [ 130 ]

The Gilded Age from the Other Side of the Tracks Hogan’s Alley

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Contents Chapter Five [ 177 ]

Politics and Sarcasm Sandburrs and the Verdict

Chapter Six [ 212 ]

Into the Roaring Twenties Vanity Fair and New Yorker Notes [ 247 ] Bibliography [ 257 ] Index [ 267 ]

Preface

ἀi s is a book about the graphic work of George Benjamin Luks (1866–1933), a leading member of a group of realist artists working in Philadelphia and New York City around the turn of the twentieth century and collectively known today as “the Eight,” or “Ashcan school.” As 2008 marked the centennial of their debut exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City (on February 3, 1908), an event catapulting them into the public limelight, this book is particularly timely. But while much has been written about the paintings of the Eight, their graphic works, particularly in the case of Luks, have received far less attention and often within the context of general remarks about the nature of newspaper illustration in the late nineteenth century, since Luks and his colleagues Everett Shinn, John Sloan, and William Glackens found their way to painting by first establishing themselves as newspaper artist-reporters. Stanley L. Cuba, Nina Kasanof, and Judith O’Toole’s George Luks: An American Artist remains the most comprehensive treatment of Luks’s art in general. ἀ e three catalog essays present an overview of Luks’s career, a more focused discussion of selected oil paintings and watercolors, and a five-page discussion of Luks’s illustrations. As with Pamela M. Davis’s City Life Illustrated, 1890–1940: Sloan, Glackens, Luks, Shin—Their Friends and Followers, published by the Delaware Art Museum in 1980, that treatment of Luks’s illustrations glosses over important ways his work opens a window into American life of the period, minimizing his original contributions as an artist-reporter. A more thorough analysis is found in Rebecca Zurier’s dissertation, “Picturing the City: New York in the Press and the Art of the Ashcan School, 1890–1917,” where diverse [ ix ]

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Preface influences such as the expansion of New York City, Robert Henri’s teaching, and trends within yellow press journalism and American realist literature are noted. But this presentation predominantly treats of developments in Luks’s painting rather than newspaper and magazine work. ἀ e master’s thesis by Edgar John Bullard III, “John Sloan and the Philadelphia Realists as Illustrators, 1890–1920,” focuses, as the title suggests, on Sloan, giving scant shrift to Luks. Luks was an original and serious artist whose book, newspaper, and journal sketches span four decades, and his graphic art deserves more careful study. Encompassing journalism and popular book and magazine work reflecting the complex interrelationship between art and contemporary consumer culture, Luks’s graphics collectively provide a sometimes unscripted, sometimes biased, often humorous, always revealing look at the concerns and preoccupations of urban Americans from the Gilded Age through the Roaring Twenties. Many drawings or cartoons remain surprisingly topical despite more than a hundred years elapsing since their creation. Illustrations of the Cuban insurrection for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, for example, or anti-imperialist drawings for the Verdict reveal an unexpected side to Luks and remain powerfully effective even today as propaganda, their durability a testament to Luks’s skill at creating vital images. Luks’s talent in selecting, distilling, and insightfully rendering images communicates across boundaries of language, culture, and time, a skill perfected as a newspaper artist-reporter when New York City was (as it is today) a polyglot metropolis. ἀ e rough-and-tumble of news reporting and the market-driven nature of newspapers and journals influenced his work. Occasionally the results were prejudicial. But despite employing and partaking of visual stereotypes, a development indicating the degree to which he fully shared in the journalistic conventions of Gilded Age America, Luks often reformulated such stock material and in so doing offered a new perspective. His materials, even when copied directly from a competing artist, as was the figure of Mickey Dugan, the famous Yellow Kid of Hogan’s Alley originated by Richard Felton Outcault, demonstrate a politically engaged conscience and a far more edgy satire than often typical for comic humor. It is difficult to conceive that Luks did not share in some fundamental way in the opinions expressed through such drawings, and this indicates that among Ashcan artists, Luks stands out for revealing his political and social views so openly. Many subjects Luks depicted were deemed inappropriate for serious artists. ἀ e fact these were created to accompany newspaper or journal articles or

Preface as cartoons enabled him to develop an art freed from restrictions of “taste” and “propriety.” More than a preparatory stage on the road to establishing a painting career, this body of work deserves careful study precisely because it evidences ways in which Luks formulated his ideas to arrive at his creative product. And if influenced at times by the demands of editors for topical drawings, these works illuminate, as well, the relationship between popular graphics and later paintings regarded as typical Ashcan school subject matter. In an age when the development of color presses suddenly allowed for a splash of color amid the black–and-white uniformity of popular illustrated journals and newspapers, graphic artists embraced the recent technology. “Funny pages” sold newspapers. Color illustrations and covers contributed to the rising popularity of journals. ἀ e saturated color and full-page format of the drawings Luks produced for the Verdict were a principal reason for that periodical’s ability to compete with Judge and Puck, heretofore the leading national political journals in America. Such market-driven incentives gave Luks an expansive, popular platform for his graphic art. Whether in Hogan’s Alley or in lavish covers and centerfolds for the Verdict, Luks mastered the intricacies of drawing complex, multifigured color drawings and devised strategies for communicating important ideas through color, manipulating its visual appeal to draw and hold the eye. And although called upon to perpetuate in bold color on the pages of the New York World Outcault’s popular figure of Mickey Dugan, aka ἀ e Yellow Kid, Luks soon made him his own. Far more than a weekly cartoon set in the slums, Hogan’s Alley grappled with burning social, cultural, and political issues through the vehicle of humor and the vicarious voyeurism of the cartoon’s tenement setting. While Outcault’s original cartoon—perpetuated as a rival strip under the name of McFadden’s Flats while Luks’s competing Hogan’s Alley ran simultaneously in the World— often referenced politics and topics of the day, Luks’s version of Hogan’s Alley is far more often politically engaged, this despite the fact that in Outcault’s strip gratuitous violence is often shockingly more apparent. Luks shared with Robert Henri the view that an artist should depict his or her own time and do so in such a way that one’s primal thoughts were preserved in the final rendering. Many of Luks’s journal drawings reveal the extent to which he remained true to these dictates. ἀ ey are evident in his renderings of children and elderly persons in Vanity Fair, and also discernable in several of his Hogan’s Alley cartoons that ring true with an authentic spirit based in observed reality. His satires for the Verdict provide excellent comparisons for

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Preface measuring his art against contemporary rivals and precedents established by pioneers of satire such as Joseph Keppler, Homer Davenport, and ἀ omas Nast, among others. Newspaper and journal drawings, more so than painting, provide an apt medium for demonstrating the contemporary nature of Luks’s art because their content is partially conditioned by topical events. Whether about racism or war, changing societal patterns, or socioeconomic conditions, drawings, sketches, and cartoons submitted to Truth, Puck, the Verdict, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, or the New York World reveal much about what Americans thought and felt. It is not surprising that Luks borrowed stereotypes current in his culture; how could he be expected not to do so? Rather, of greater significance are the uses he made of such imagery. If Luks demonstrates a distressingly uncritical acceptance of American attitudes about race, he also posed powerful challenges to the status quo with respect to attitudes about propriety, socioeconomic injustice, and ethnic diversity. ἀi s book is organized into six chapters. Chapter 1 contextualizes the drawings, locating these within the broader tradition of American illustration culture of the Gilded Age. Chapter 2 examines Luks’s employment as a freelance contributor to Puck and as an artist for Truth, where he first began to distinguish himself by utilizing and modifying the journalistic precedents of his day. Chapter 3 treats the period of Luks’s newspaper work as an “Artist Special” reporter for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in Cuba covering the insurrection leading up to the Spanish-American War. ἀ e thirty-three Bulletin drawings reveal his artistic voice and accommodations made to editorial demands for sensational stories. Fired for alcoholism, Luks landed in New York City in March 1896. An extremely fruitful career ensued as artist-reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. While responding to the requirements of the new brand of journalism espoused by Pulitzer and evident in the colorful and lively reporting on the pages of the World, Luks produced several drawings that provoke important questions. Particularly striking are his observations on bohemian life, Coney Island, the changing roles of women, and the explosive growth of New York City, as are new cartoon series he originated variously titled the Kalsomine Family, Mose the Trained Chicken, or the Little Nippers, which bear comparison with the Uncle Remus tales of Joel Chandler Harris. Chapter 4 focuses upon Hogan’s Alley. ἀ ese cartoons provide an especially good index for gauging how Luks addressed social issues to a mass audience under the guise of humor and how he responded to, competed with, and fed off of the precedent and popular work of his rival and friend Richard Felton

Preface Outcault. Chapter 5 discusses Luks’s contribution as principal illustrator for the Verdict. ἀ e Verdict drawings are exceedingly bold, tackling controversial issues such as American imperialism, machine politics, and the Trusts. ἀ eir highly polished compositions, exquisite detail, and gorgeous color rank them among the most alluring works Luks created during his career as an artistreporter and evidence his decidedly liberal and Democratic political leanings, though one must take into account the fact that this journal held a decidedly liberal stance within the political culture of that era. In chapter 6, I discuss Luks’s contributions to Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, drawings spanning the remainder of his artistic career from 1914 through his death in 1933. ἀ ese slyly poke fun at the foibles of artists, burlesque queens, the literati, Prohibition, and similar themes. In so doing, they reveal ways Luks’s keen wit, sharp eye, and distilled observations continually communicated his understanding of the human condition and how his art changed following his rise in status as an accomplished and successful painter. Rather than forming a preliminary or preparatory footnote to his more well known and successful career as a painter, the journal, book, and newspaper graphics of George B. Luks remain important precisely because they constitute a prime locus where he developed and worked out attitudes and ideas that shaped his entire career and where the social and cultural issues that underlie many of his paintings can be clearly grasped and appreciated.

Acknowledgments I want to acknowledge and thank the staff at the Anderson Rare Book Library, the University of Minnesota for enabling me to view and photograph Luks’s drawings reproduced in Truth; staff at the Wilson Library, also at Minnesota, for providing copies of the New York World, Vanity Fair, and New Yorker, and for their interlibrary loan services; and the staff of the General Services Division, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, for permission to copy and use several images from the New York World and the Verdict. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of various book dealers who assisted me in procuring original copies of Dr. Dodd’s School, Sandburrs, and Gustave.

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Life on the Press

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Chapter One

A Luks Biography The Context of His Graphic Art

On February 3, 1908, at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City, eight artists rebelled against the National Academy of Design, whose conservative juries, monopoly control over the most prestigious exhibition venue in the city, and pictorial bias favoring landscapes, portraits, or historical themes they deemed intolerable. Not all were radicals. ἀ eir unofficial leader, Robert Henri (1865– 1929), achieved recognition with the purchase of his work by the French state and subsequent election into the Academy, where he regularly exhibited and served as juror. Collectively, these mavericks firmly believed in the right of artists to choose their subjects, to exhibit uncensored by jury selection processes, and, most significant, to portray life of their own time. Many, including George Benjamin Luks (1866–1933),John Sloan (1871–1951), Everett Shinn (1876–1953), and William Glackens (1870–1938), came to art from newspaper and magazine work, a background schooling them in the ability to capture everyday events in lightning-quick strokes jotted down on scraps of paper. Others, notably Maurice Prendergast (1858–1924), Ernest Lawson (1873–1939), and Arthur B. Davies (1862–1928), were familiar with European modernism, and their work reflected such trends. All resisted being lumped together as “the Eight,” as New York critics denominated them subsequent to their February debut. [ 3]

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art An original artist whose book illustrations, newspaper work, and journal sketches span four decades and inform his later painting, George Benjamin Luks is the least studied of this group.1 His graphic art provides a sometimes unscripted, sometimes biased, often humorous, always revealing look at the concerns and preoccupations of urban Americans from the Gilded Age through the Roaring Twenties as well as the complex interrelationship between graphic arts and the topical requirements of newspaper and magazine editors oriented toward a mass-market consumerism and popular culture. Luks was born on August 13, 1866, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, a thriving lumber town, and baptized at Immanuel United Church of Christ on May 17, 1867, nearly a full year after his birth, a fact accounting for the incorrect and persistent assumption he was born in 1867 (Bullard, 53). When asked about his origins, Luks avoided giving a date, brashly stating, “I was born just about the time our God-dammed Congress was trying to bash Andy Johnson out of office” (de Casseres, 10). Reared in a comfortable middle-class Victorian home to cultured German immigrant parents, Luks spent his youth in the Pennsylvania coal country. ἀ ough the family was relatively prosperous and educated, the experience of being an immigrant’s son may have been a factor in his later interest in portraying immigrants and ethnic types both in paintings of East Side figures between 1905 and 1910 and in cartoon illustrations of 1896–1897 depicting the tenement kids of Hogan’s Alley, which, even though a series originated by Richard Felton Outcault, assumed a more topical, edgy nature under Luks’s hand. Although Luks often referred to himself as “the German,” his father identified as an ethnic Pole, and naturalization papers dated 1892 list the nonexistent “Poland” as his country of origin, reasons that may explain his discontent and willingness to leave Europe behind (Cuba, Kasanof, and O’Toole, 8, n.4). ἀ e circumstance of being orphaned as a youth may have contributed to Emil Luks’s desire to begin anew in the United States around 1850 from Danzig (Gdansk), then part of the Prussian state. His training in public health equipped him with vital skills much in demand in the Pennsylvania coal country, where he settled after marrying Bertha Emilia Von Kramer, George’s mother. Bertha came from Bavaria, where her father served as an officer in the army (Cuba, Kasanof, and O’Toole, 8). Explaining that influence upon the family’s heritage, George’s younger brother, Will Luks, once quipped, “All the philosophies ever written can be divided into two kinds. One weeps at the world, the other laughs at it. We laugh at it because it is in our nature to and we can’t help it. . . . ἀ e Bavarians are great fighters; they

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art made the best soldiers Germany ever had. We’re fighters. You have to fight to live. Life’s a struggle, like being pushed into a subway jam” (Villard, 5–6). Because her father had been an officer, Bertha brought to her own marriage an aristocratic heritage yet one tinged with rebelliousness as her father had married a commoner. She in turn imparted this dual legacy to her own children as well as a cultured upbringing emphasizing music, art, and French. As an impressionistic six-year-old in 1872, George moved with his family from Williamsport to Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, situated in Schuylkill County near the heart of the anthracite coal district. ἀ ere he received important childhood lessons in social justice as his father aided the Molly McGuires, a clandestine and sometime violent miners’ organization largely composed of immigrant workers agitating for better pay, improved working conditions, and unionization. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Irish, Welsh, German, and English immigrants, later eastern Europeans, comprised the bulk of laborers engaged in the dangerous job of mining coal in Schuylkill County, where low pay, long hours, and an unending rash of accidents took a heavy toll; over a seven-year period in Schuylkill County alone, 566 miners lost their lives and an additional 1,665 were seriously injured.2 Memories of the miners’ struggle for justice and the compassionate response of Luks’s father, who offered them free medical care (Weber, 13), would be reflected years later in hard-hitting, satirical magazine cartoons and centerfolds Luks created for the Verdict such as Protection Nursery, the Trusts Reared and Cared For (August 14, 1899) and The Great American Simolean Sextette—Hanna: Now All Together— Dough! (February 13, 1899), excoriating the Trusts and corporate policies. Additionally, his affectionate embrace of immigrants and the poor is echoed in the benign humor and antics of tenement dwellers in New York World cartoons such as Valentine’s Day in Hogan’s Alley (February 14, 1897) and Hogan’s Alley Folk at the Aquarium (July 7, 1897). Luks’s ability to seek out and discover beauty—indeed, nobility of character—among tenement children, the elderly poor of Manhattan’s East Side, and coal miners, and to depict the same in his later paintings like The Spielers (1905; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute), Widow McGee (1902; Joslyn Art Museum) and The Miner (1925; National Gallery of Art), further corroborates the lifelong impression engendered by his father’s empathy for the poor. At a young age Luks’s incipient talent expressed itself whenever the opportunity arose. While holding down a job as a store clerk, he sketched customers’ portraits on brown wrapping paper to later identify them to the proprietor

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art (O’Toole, Watercolors Rediscovered, 15). And as a schoolboy he developed a facility in drawing comic Valentine caricatures in addition to acting-out antics such as arising during class to give ear-splitting imitations of steam calliopes and Whiffenpoofs (Luks Papers, Microfilm Reel 95, frame 48). By 1883 Luks seems to have developed an interest in oils sufficient to allow him to paint copies of engravings after famous American paintings of the Hudson River School (Mitchell Foundation, fact sheet). ἀi s important information reveals much about Luks’s probable knowledge of and the sources for his early art. During the years of his youth, middle-class Americans avidly purchased and hung on dining room and parlor walls chromolithographs, the first such color process attempting to imitate the surface appearance of expensive oil paintings yet affordable for a middle class eager to learn more about art, its ennobling and aesthetic potential, and to demonstrate their “taste” by displaying such works (Marzio, 119–128). Although color lithography flourished at an early date in Boston in the work of J. H. Bufford, Philadelphia soon emerged as one of the leading centers for the chromolithographic reproduction of paintings, where four firms, P. S. Duval, ἀ omas Sinclair, Wagner and McGuigan, and L. N. Rosenthal, offered a range of subjects, including American Autumn, Starucca Valley after an oil painting by the Hudson River artist Jasper F. Cropsey and Scene from the Hunter-Naturalist after Alfred Jacob Miller (Marzio, 27–35). Philadelphia-produced chromolithographs similar to these may well have been the sources from which Luks derived his early knowledge of painting. A surviving sketch Luks inscribed “Yours/Geo Luks/Shenandoah March 1883” depicts a wooden palette set with colors, a maulstick, and five brushes protruding through the palette thumbhole, while a garland of thorny flowers arches above the artist’s inscription. ἀ e inclusion of a maulstick, a device to steady the hand when applying precise details such as foliage of the type frequently found in Hudson River School paintings, further indicates Luks’s awareness of Hudson River School art. Such exacting technique was taught at the Düsseldorf Academy, the training ground for many American artists—including Luks—whether in genre, landscape, or portraiture. But as a mature artist Luks would repudiate such methods. Simultaneous with his emerging art interests, Luks developed a burgeoning vaudeville career, teaming up with his younger brother, Will, at age seventeen in 1883 to form the blackface vaudeville act Buzzy and Anstock. ἀ eir diametric appearance—Luks short, round, and moon-faced; Will tall, lanky, and hollow-cheeked—was accentuated by costumes with Luks’s Buzzy sporting

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art boldly plaid slacks and vest and a jacket two sizes too small for his belly, and Will’s Anstock appearing scarecrowlike with wiry hair, tight-fitting trousers, and ample scissor-tail jacket. By 1882 the two were touring eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a pursuit interrupted in 1884 when George entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for formal study yet intermittently renewed for years afterward following his decision to drop out of art school. Two signed sketches respectively dated June 28 and 30, 1891, and inscribed Vineland, New Jersey, where the Luks brothers stayed during their tour, give a measure of Luks’s art at this time. ἀ e first depicts a cowboy with flowing hair and bushy mustache seated sidesaddle and cross-legged atop a smaller-scale horse while brandishing a pistol in his right hand and holding a wanted poster in his left headlined “Texas sightings.” ἀ e second drawing depicts a quartet of caricatured blackface minstrels before the footlights of a vaudeville stage beneath which is scrawled a ditty by Will Luks. A surviving undated letter, almost certainly from the 1890s and written by George Luks to Everett Shinn, describes their circuit and indicates Luks’s continued interest in art (Shinn Papers, Microfilm Reel 952, frames 911–912).At the heading, Luks sketched a cartoon of their act depicting a lean, hungry wolf standing on its haunches and drooling beside a cabin door, while in front a rotund figure in blackface and striped trousers, jacket, and spat-covered shoes (Luks in costume?) lies terrified and prostrate on the ground. One is left to imagine the ensuing slapstick antics as the pair tries to outwit the hungry wolf. ἀ e experience of touring with a troupe, performing before lowbrow and middlebrow audiences; mastering the dialect, antic motions, and comic repartee expected for the role of a blackface stage personage in the 1880s; and imbibing the raucous humor predominant in this form of public theater is aptly captured in Luks’s New York World cartoon The Hogan’s Alley Kids at the Continuous Performance (December 5, 1897), and would be reflected in many drawings of African Americans, as well as of Irish Americans, Jews, and occasionally Italians and Chinese, that he would come to execute for popular illustrated journals such as Puck and Truth in the 1890s. One of Luks’s first paintings, The Amateurs (1899, private collection, alternatively titled The Vaudeville Singers), vividly demonstrates the important role vaudeville played in Luks’s formative years. As work and leisure split into separate spheres, the importance of leisure as time spent shaping and reinforcing one’s class identity grew proportionally (Kasson, 31;Gordon, 16–17). What one did during one’s leisure time, whether attending vaudeville, drinking in saloons, socializing in dance

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art halls, or reading comics, became contested terrain, a place where the struggle to define the new, urban American experience played out. Vaudeville, magazines, and the comics helped Americans adapt to this emerging mass culture by enabling urban dwellers to meet on familiar turf; the ethnic traditions of vaudeville assisted audiences in negotiating their hyphenated identities both as Americans and immigrants, and humor magazines and the Sunday comics played on this immigrant American identity (Snyder, xvi). ἀ e pages of Puck or Judge, the preferred leisure reading of the upper-class, rarely lacked blackand-white “filler” cartoons stressing perceived character flaws of “alien” elements within American society: comical black Americans, shanty Irish, conniving Jews (Fischer, 70), the very stereotypes perpetuated upon the vaudeville stage. ἀ e extent to which similar racist depictions appear in the graphic work of Luks provides an indication of the unabashedly popular appeal of his journal and newspaper drawings rooted, as they are, in consumerist culture, while providing an indication of the degree to which Luks uncritically accepted such racial and ethnic categorizations. Such stereotyping presents a serious critique and challenge to the long-held assumption that Ashcan artists offered predominantly benign, positive images of their tenement subjects. To the extent Luks’s cartoons for Puck and Truth employ such stereotypes, they reveal the ways his art both mirrored the elitist ethnicity assumed by (white) cartoonists of his day and pandered to the culture of the marketplace, where such illustrated journals found their audiences. Luks’s vaudeville experience also proved seminal by encouraging him to scrutinize the actions of theater audiences. His insightful ability as a mature artist to deftly capture peculiarities of physiognomy and character in his sketchbooks compiled in 1900 and 1915, as well as drawings of character types appearing in Vanity Fair between 1914 and 1933, has its genesis in this early ability to “read” his vaudeville audience and make them laugh. By the time he approached his eighteenth birthday in 1884, Luks felt sufficiently confident of his artistic abilities to enroll in the night antique class at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. An important surviving pen, ink, and graphite sketch titled Child Eating Apple (fig. 1-1),signed by the artist in the lower right and dated to 1884, provides an idea of his art at the time. ἀ e drawing depicts a young waif of about six years of age seated on the curb of a dark, recessed cubicle. She has fleecy, cropped hair and wears a dark knit shawl about her shoulders and upper torso and a plain, ankle-length dress as she clutches and holds up to her mouth the large round fruit whose form

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art

Fig. 1-1.Child Eating Apple, pen, ink, graphite. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.

is echoed in her pudgy cheeks, baby face, fleshy hand, and squat pose. Such an accurately observed and carefully rendered scene resembles documentary photographs of slum children published in Jacob Riis’s popular reform tract Children of the Poor (1892), providing one of the earliest indications of Luks’s interest in interpreting the life of the Lower East Side and a composition he

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art reprised in oil in his 1907 painting The Little Madonna, where a golden-haired doll substitutes for the apple. ἀ e drawing is important, too, for revealing Luks’s knowledge of anatomy and his ability to accurately depict three-dimensional form. For while convincing, the child’s features are rendered with a minimum of shading, and volume is conveyed more by the light/dark contrast between background and figure than within the flesh itself. As a student enrolled in the Academy’s antique class, Luks would have been compelled to diligently execute charcoal drawings of plaster casts after well-known Greek and Roman sculptures. Only after mastering volume, shading, and the ability to render the musculature of the human form could he advance to the life class, and there he would continue drawing in charcoal before advancing to color, all the while absorbing lessons in anatomy often taught by medical doctors. Luks disliked this regimen and remained a student at the Pennsylvania Academy for no more than a month, returning to his vaudeville career subsequent to quitting the school. ἀ ough his stay was brief, Luks entered the Academy shortly after its most famous teacher, the great realist painter ἀ omas Eakins (1844–1916), had been fired for his innovative teaching methods, insistence upon rigorous drawing from the nude, and a degree of inappropriate— though nonsexual—intimacy with students, urging, as he did, their posing and frolicking nude together (Homer, 8). But Luks did experience the teaching of Eakins’s replacement, ἀ omas Anshutz (1851–1912), who urged students to combine knowledge of learned experience, intuition, and subjective feeling to render the model’s form, qualities Luks upheld in his own art and prompting him years later to cite Anshutz as “the best art instructor I ever had the good fortune to encounter.”3 In the fall of 1889, following another stint in vaudeville, Luks determined to undertake formal study again, this time sailing for Germany, the country of origin of his immigrant parents, and enrolling in October of that year at the Staatliche Kunstakademie, Hockscule fur Bildende Kunste in Düsseldorf. While Luks boasted of having studied with Henrich Lauenstein, professor of the elementary class at Düsseldorf, there is little doubt he never actually studied with such an academically trained artist since, as with the Pennsylvania Academy, he remained at the Staatliche Kunstakademie for little more than a month. His boast of such training is akin to his facetious jest of having fought 150 lightweight bouts under the name “Chicago Whitey” in order to earn funds for European study and travel. Instead of academic study, Luks preferred to travel to noted art centers, including Munich, as well as in France and

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art England, where he absorbed examples of Old Master paintings in museum collections and observed contemporary German art practice. ἀ e experience proved important on several counts. First and foremost, it introduced Luks to the “Munich Style,” a brand of painting propounded by German artists such as Wilhelm Leibel (1844–1900) and adopted and brought back to America by artists like Frank Duveneck (1848–1919) and William Merritt Chase (1849– 1916) (Quick and Ruhmer, 21–36). ἀ e Munich Style emphasized dark-toned, heavily pigmented, fluently brushed surfaces employing virtuoso technique, realism, and rich atmospheric, chiaroscuro effects. ἀ ese are precisely the qualities Luks would later capture in many of his most famous paintings. ἀ e rejection of historical and mythological themes by Leibel and his circle in favor of peasant and genre subjects further contributed to Luks’s antipathy toward academics and his own growing interest in commonplace subjects. ἀi s realist strain would serve him in good stead as an artist-reporter for the Philadelphia Press, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, and New York World, where often he was required to render essential qualities of an individual’s character or a particular location in a few deftly captured strokes of his crayon or pencil, and is apparent, too, in the convincing tenement settings of Hogan’s Alley, believable though entirely fictitious. However, the Munich Style was not without art-historical precedent, and this would have been confirmed during visits to the Alte Pinakothek, Munich’s famous museum of European art from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, where Luks would have seen important examples of peasant subjects painted in a verist manner, such as Boys Eating Fruit by the Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin’s Girl Peeling Vegetables, Gerhard Ter Borch’s Boy Picking Fleas from a Dog, as well as the fluid brushwork and chiaroscuro realism characteristic of Rembrandt’s SelfPortrait as a Young Man. If Luks also made a side visit to Berlin, he must have studied the Malle Babe, a painting by Frans Hals at the Gemäldegaleria, Staatlich Museen depicting a cackling old woman holding a tankard of ale while an owl perches on her left shoulder. Its fluid, tactile brushwork and subject matter closely resemble the motif of an old woman with macaw Luks would depict on several occasions. Sometime early in 1890 Luks left Germany for Paris. It was a particularly exciting time to be in the French capital. On February 7, 1890, Claude Monet initiated a public campaign to purchase Édouard Manet’s notorious Olympia and offer the painting to the French state, publishing his letter to the minister

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art

Fig. 1-2. Man with Basket, pen and ink. Munson-WilliamsProctor Institute, Utica, New York.

of fine arts in Le Figaro in order to keep the affair before the public eye. ἀ at effort was roundly lampooned by the popular periodical La Vie Parisienne, which published a cartoon satirizing the arrival of Manet’s painting among the hallowed nudes of the Louvre. As an aspiring, inquisitive student purposely visiting Paris to study art, Luks may well have been aware of this public controversy, and the experience also may have induced him to familiarize himself with the work of Manet, whose bold forms, brusquely applied color with

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art minimal gradations of value and shade, and unorthodox, somewhat pedestrian subject matter would have appealed to him, as would Manet’s dubious reputation within French academe. Luks also appreciated the innovations of the French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), whom he later praised as “great any way you look at him.”4 ἀ e greatest art teacher in Paris, however, remained the Louvre, where examples of European masters from every age and country could be found. Luks encountered examples of Dutch painting, particularly the various self-portraits of Rembrandt as well as the sensual La Bohémienne by Frans Hals. A surviving pen-and-ink drawing, Man with Basket (fig. 1-2), probably executed in Paris or London, where Luks next traveled, dates from this time. Notable for its chosen subject, the picture presents a study of an ordinary market vendor, casually dressed in slacks, smock, and crumpled hat, supporting an enormous wicker hamper on his right arm and holding a key ring in his left hand while walking toward the right. His paunchy girth, mustache, and vacant stare—details insightfully observed—convey much about his workaday world and character. An important note among the Edward Wales Root papers lists a pen-and-ink drawing dated to 1889 with dimensions 6 7/8 by 117/8 inches bearing the title Old Lobster Man, which must be this same picture that Root subsequently sold to the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute. ἀ e title from the Root inventory more accurately interprets the man’s occupation than the current generic title ascribed to this drawing. Luks next visited London and, as in Paris, continued to study distinguished painting collections, including those in the British Museum. Travelers (fig. 1-3), a sketch executed perhaps while sailing on the channel boat to England, depicts a group of passengers idling away time on deck. ἀ ough undated, this drawing must have been made between 1890 and no later than 1903, the period during which Luks traveled in Europe. Two identically clad European-looking gentlemen smoking meerschaum pipes sit atop steamer trunks, one of which bears a sticker labeled London. Two boys sit and stand off to their left, and beyond a Victorian gentleman in leg-of-mutton sideburns and top hat converses with a woman. Facing this assemblage, two matronly women dressed in simple long dresses, their hair tied in buns and covered by long-brimmed bonnets, stand side by side as they hold up what appear to be hymnals to serenade the captive audience, whose expressions range from curious bemusement to uncomfortable. Valises and trunks litter the deck. If this represents a Salvation Army scene or a group of Cockneys, it provides

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Fig. 1-3. Travelers, pencil. Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York.

additional evidence that from the very outset of his career, Luks found such prosaic subjects of interest and worthy of attention. Luks also spent time painting, and the London visit remains notable for having produced one of his earliest surviving canvases, London Bus Driver (fig. 1-4). Depicting the bustlength portrait of a ruddy-complexioned, double-chinned man facing nearly in profile to the right, this working-class subject set against a dark, neutral ground already exhibits characteristics of Luks’s mature portrait style. Nondescript in his dark coat and high-crowned hat, the bus driver’s character is conveyed by a few carefully selected details: his orange-red scarf reflects the ruddy glow of his cheeks, ear lobe, pursed lips, and tip of his nose, conveying both a real sense of working outdoors in the cold air as well as a hinting of inebriation brought on by nipping at whiskey to keep warm. ἀ e elongated ovoid form of the hat is repeated in the shape of the cabby’s face, its drooping, jowly appearance accentuated by the tip of his long nose, downward turn of his mustache, and fleshy chin. Selective white highlights appearing on the driver’s mustache and nose and across the forehead echo the enormous white

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art

Fig. 1-4. London Bus Driver, 1899, oil on canvas, 27 by 22 inches. Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Marion Stratton Gould Fund.

rose pinned to his lapel and suggest a rakish wit. ἀ e intense complementaries of red and green and the focused light illuminating the face hold the eye in the center of the composition, inviting one to further contemplate this man’s visage. ἀ e picture is a notable achievement, proving Luks to be a quick study at absorbing lessons from Hals and Rembrandt. Visually interesting with just a hint at caricature, the painting displays Luks’s ability to capture unique characterizations that would help make his later drawings for New York World news articles noteworthy. Luks returned to the United States by late 1890 and sought work as a magazine illustrator, a potentially lucrative field for an aspiring American artist. By

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art that decade, the popular magazine market in America had expanded dramatically with the corresponding rise of the middle class, increased urbanization, and expansion of literacy among city dwellers. At the same time, the adoption of the linotype machine made possible automatic typesetting of newspapers and books, while the adoption of steam-driven presses allowed for greater speed and efficiency in printing. ἀ e use of chromolithography made possible the appearance of striking covers and magazine centerfolds in what had previously been the black-and-white medium of publishing. Magazine editors often employed artists to meet the demand for drawings and satirical cartoons destined for the pages of these new mass-market magazines or else purchased sketches from freelance artists at an average of $5.00 each (Fischer, 7). But some artists like ἀ omas Nast (1840–1902) of Harper’s Weekly or Joseph Keppler (1838–1894), the owner of Puck and an accomplished political cartoonist in his own right, earned large sums for their drawings as well as fame. Nast, for example, embarked upon a celebrity tour of the United States, enthralling audiences with a personal account of how his 1871 cartoons against William Marcy “Boss” Tweed of New York City and Tammany Hall brought down the notorious machine politician. With his love of public showmanship and confidence in his abilities, Luks certainly may have hoped that he could land a similarly lucrative staff position at one of the more prestigious magazines and earn a comfortable living, and it may have been just such a hope that motivated him to freelance his first cartoons to Puck, the leading journal for political satire in America, liberal in its pro-Democratic leanings, and under the ownership of editor Joseph Keppler. Several cartoons by Nast and Keppler offer many parallels with the drawings Luks would produce for the Verdict, a pro-Democratic journal that would employ him in 1899. Nast began his career as a staff artist for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper in 1856, but in 1862, during the Civil War, he joined Harper’s Weekly where, together with editor William Curtis, he helped transform the journal into “the greatest political power in post-bellum publishing” (Hess and Kaplan, 93). His fame as a satirist arose from the fifty cartoons he drew in 1871 to defeat the corrupt alliance consisting of Tweed, the kingpin of Tammany Hall, and his cohorts Peter Sweeny, Richard Connolly, and Mayor A. Oakley Hall, a campaign that realized the defeat of Mayor Hall and the election of a reform mayor and saw the eventual imprisonment of Tweed. Two cartoons from this campaign would prove to be influential in the work of Luks, The Brains (Harper’s Weekly, October 21, 1871; fig. 1-5) and The Tammany Tiger Loose—What Are

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art

Fig. 1-5.ἀ omas Nast, The Brains, Harper’s Weekly, October 21, 1871.

Fig. 1-6. ἀ omas Nast, The Tammany Tiger Let Loose—What Are You Going to Do About It? Harper’s Weekly, November 11, 1871.

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art You Going to Do About It? (Harper’s Weekly, November 11, 1871; fig. 1-6). In the former, Tweed is portrayed as a faceless, bloated plutocrat identified solely by the gleaming $15,500 diamond stickpin prominently displayed on his shirt front and a money bag inscribed with a dollar sign substituting for his face and brains, the shape of that symbol manipulated ever so slightly so as to suggest the contour of Tweed’s bulbous nose (Hess and Kaplan, 95). ἀ e quintessential symbol of corrupt power, such telling satire would constitute a model for Luks when he in turn lampooned the equally corrupt figure of Marcus Hanna (1837–1904) in such drawings for the Verdict as The Great American Simolean Sextette (February 13, 1899) and Hanna: That Man Clay Was an Ass. It’s Better to Be President Than Right! (March 13, 1899). Analyzing comic art, E. H. Gombrich viewed Nast’s tiger caricature as representing the ability of a cartoonist to “mythologize the world by physiognomizing it” (Fischer, 11). Such an application of a well-known and widely understood animal symbolism would be reprised by Luks in his own caricature of the collusion between Tammany Hall, the Trusts, and corporate finance in How Its Done in Wall Street appearing in the Verdict (May 1, 1899). ἀ at Nast received a generous stipend of $150 for producing his cartoon reveals both the power of its impact in that editor Curtis willingly paid such a generous amount for it and the potentially lucrative rewards awaiting the most sage of cartoon illustrators. ἀ e editor of Puck, Joseph Keppler, a German immigrant schooled in the art of political cartoon satire, began his career in 1872 drawing for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper but four years later published his own Germanlanguage weekly called Puck, subsequently spinning off an English-language version in 1877. Keppler realized the potential for reaching an American audience through an English-language magazine and lavished resources on this publication, including illustrated color covers, lithograph centerfolds, numerous pen-and-ink drawings, humorous articles, jokes, and stories. By 1880 Puck enjoyed a circulation of 80,000, dominating the American magazine market and surpassing Harper’s as America’s leading illustrated journal (West, 132–133). Puck created a virtual revolution in how American magazines were produced and marketed. Whereas Harper’s adhered to the black-and-white format of woodcuts and steel engravings, Puck featured three chromolithographs in every issue, Keppler having borrowed the idea from the widespread popularity accorded the prints produced by Currier and Ives and Louis Prang (West, 2). Such a lavish display revolutionized American publishing, signaling the desire to increase sales by appealing to popular consumer demand.

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art But Keppler’s cartoons and those of artists Friedrich Graetz and Karl Edler did something more than add color; they contained a strong dose of political satire and popularized the same through the suggestion of creating a continuously unfolding drama in the action characters assumed within a single framed image (West, 5). Keppler was well schooled in the power of political satire from his training in Germany and his knowledge of French satire from such journals as Le Charivari. His desire to make Puck successful also meant that he learned from America’s leading political satirist and his principal rival, ἀ omas Nast. Unabashedly pro-Democratic in his sympathies, Keppler further sought to position his journal as a liberal rival to Judge, the leading illustrated Republican magazine. ἀ e fact that both Keppler and Luks shared a Germanic heritage—as did ἀ omas Nast—and that Luks could claim, however exaggeratedly, of having visited and studied in Düsseldorf and Munich may have been leading factors inducing Keppler to try out the untested artist, even if only as a freelance contractor on a cartoon-for-pay basis. For his part, Luks absorbed powerful lessons on how to create effective comic satire, came to appreciate the potential of cartoons to pointedly address political and social issues, and further comprehended the subtle ways in which a popular market-driven medium (cartoons) influenced the attitudes of magazine consumers. One of Keppler’s most famous—and notorious—cartoons, Forbidding the Banns (August 25, 1880), satirizing James Garfield in the garb of an unwed, pregnant mother, would be reprised by Luks in his own satire of Trust magnates as choir-singing sopranos in The Great American Simolean Sextette and in numerous cartoons where McKinley appears as a little girl wearing a dress, both appearing in the Verdict in 1899. Keppler also originated the theme of grandpa’s top hat as a symbol to ridicule the political aspirations of Benjamin Harrison (Hess and Kaplan, 109), variously depicting the head of Harrison fairly smothered beneath the weight and size of his grandfather’s headgear (The Raven [Puck, August 13, 1890]) until finally disappearing into the hat altogether (Where Is He? [Puck, November 16, 1892]). Luks would employ a very similar idea in the Verdict to express the notion of the incompetence of William McKinley by dismissing him as a diminutive simpleton wearing an oversize top hat and manipulated by Hanna in Hanna: That Man Clay Was an Ass. To the extent Luks learned from the examples of Nast and Keppler, his work also demonstrates one other important lesson: the emotional impact of a cartoon at first sight to shock and, through such shock, to reinforce a priori

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art beliefs, values, and prejudices (Fischer, 15). In such a circumstance, content does not so much change one’s opinion as confirm one’s preexisting suspicions and prejudices. Such a scenario applies to Luks’s cartoons in the Verdict, hardhitting in their anti-Republicanism, anti-Trust beliefs, and anti-imperialist orientation. Financed and supported by millionaire Oliver P. Belmont, the magazine catered to a strongly pro-Democratic readership, aiming to replace Puck as the leading national Democratic journal. Belmont detested McKinley and sought through forceful editorials attacking the president and pillorying Marcus Hanna to offer a more sharp-edged product than he believed was available in the pages of Puck. Especially disturbing to Belmont was the recent acquisition by the United States of overseas possessions, an imperialism Belmont believed inconsistent with American democratic ideals. ἀ e brutal satire in Luks’s Verdict cartoons depicted in all their full-page, garish color helped disseminate Belmont’s ideas to a largely sympathetic readership. But as a freelance artist, Luks only contributed nine cartoons to Puck at irregular intervals. ἀi s dearth of opportunity motivated him to seek out the competing weekly Truth, where he worked from September 3, 1891,until August 25, 1894, producing more than 234 drawings.5 Published in New York City between 1881and 1905, Truth began as a weekly, switching to a monthly format in 1898. Under the editorship of Blakely Hall, Truth competed with Puck, Judge, and Life by adopting a folio format with lithograph centerfold, color cartoons on the back cover, interior illustrations, plus short stories, reviews, jokes, and a gossip column, a formula attracting 50,000 subscribers. Significant for Luks’s development as a graphic artist is the work of Homer Davenport (1867–1912) and Richard Felton Outcault (1863–1928), the latter of whom also submitted cartoons to Truth during the time when Luks worked there. Employed with William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper organization in San Francisco before Hearst brought him east as principal cartoonist for the New York Journal in his anti-McKinley/pro-Bryan newspaper campaign of 1896, Homer Davenport created cartoons having the shock value evident in Nast’s best work and serving as an important catalyst for Luks. ἀ e only major American newspaper to support Bryan, Hearst’s Journal needed to make an impression, and Davenport delivered by creating a satirical image of McKinley’s wealthy campaign manager and principal financial backer, Marcus Hanna, in a cartoon titled I Am Confident the Working Men Are with Us (October 8, 1896). ἀ e image depicts Hanna as a bloated tycoon clad in a checkered suit inscribed with dollar signs, his face grotesquely distorted

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art with extended earlobes, possessed of a throaty chin and jaw, pug nose, and prominent eye ridges resembling simian physiognomy. Hanna is seated in a chair holding a whip and resting his feet on bags of campaign cash, while the skull and bones of labor rot on the ground nearby. Other Journal cartoons featured a close-up of Hanna’s fleshy fist grasping a puppetlike McKinley (A Man of Mark! August 4, 1896), or as a grotesque Wall Street statue with distended belly, palm held out in a gesture seeking cash, a replacement for the famous image of George Washington being carted off by fellow financiers in the foreground (Wall Street Wishes a New Guardian of the Treasury, September 1, 1896). With Davenport employed as a cartoonist on Hearst’s New York Journal during the time Luks worked for Pulitzer’s rival newspaper, the New York World, Luks could not have helped but notice and be aware of Davenport’s cartoons. But as the World did not support Bryan, Luks would wait until 1899, when he would be encouraged by the Verdict to satirize McKinley and Hanna. Many of the images Luks created at that time borrow the physiognomic distortions of Davenport’s Hanna, as well as the idea of portraying McKinley as a dupe and midget. ἀ e other influential artist was Richard Felton Outcault. Born in Ohio, Outcault pursued art training at the McMicken University School of Design in Cincinnati before embarking upon a career as a scenic painter in 1888 for the Edison Laboratories, producing a background display advertising electric lights for the Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley and Middle Atlantic States. Subsequently, ἀ omas Edison hired him as a full-time employee and sent him to Paris, and by 1890 Outcault had joined the staff of Electrical World Magazine in New York City while simultaneously freelancing cartoons to magazines, including Truth. Outcault’s early cartoons for Truth are significant in that here he first developed the idea for the character soon to become the Yellow Kid following its appearance in Pulitzer’s New York World. Four of Outcault’s early Truth cartoons illustrate the evolution of the Yellow Kid from a minor figure to a character in his own right: Feudal Pride in Hogan’s Alley (June 2, 1894), A Fair Champion (July 15, 1894), Going by Precept (September 15, 1894), and Fourth Ward Brownies (February 9, 1895).6 ἀ ese images are additionally significant for their humorous depictions of New York tenement environments and the attention given to Irish, Jewish, and African American characters, a development clearly evident in A Fair Champion (fig. 1-7). Given the laboring-class status of many American-born Irish of the era, magazine readers of the 1880s would have regarded as comical the dialect-inflected

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Fig. 1-7. Richard Felton Outcault, A Fair Champion, Truth, July 15, 1894.

speech of the Irish Lorreena Lafferty, who assumes an uppity attitude while walking arm-in-arm with her Jewish beau, Issy Silberman, stereotyped with a hooked nose and swaggering posture. Combined with the broad-lipped, grinning black child and raggedy kids comprising the crowd of onlookers, such caricatures conform to popular stereotypes long prevalent in American culture (Fischer, 70–100) and first glimpsed in the cartoons of city urchins drawn by Michael Angelo Woolf in the 1870s for the humor magazine Wild Oats (Blackbeard, 17–19). ἀ e young barefoot boy clad in a long nightgown, standing in the far right foreground of this cartoon, marks one of the earliest appearances of the Yellow Kid prototype figure. His first appearance in the New York World on February 17, 1895, consisted of a reprint of Fourth Ward Brownies appearing in Truth the previous week. Here the Yellow Kid has now adopted his trademark bald head, while his soiled nightshirt hints at its future function as the site for the kid’s written dialogue. ἀ ough the cartoon at this stage remained a small black-and-white drawing, this first World image also treats the issue of copyright (Gordon, 29), a dispute that would

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art lead to simultaneous and rival versions of the Yellow Kid drawn by Outcault and Luks after the former left the World for the New York Journal in October 1896 and took his strip with him, while Pulitzer hired Luks to continue drawing the popular comic in his own paper. Luks employed ethnic humor and a tenement setting in many of the cartoons he drew for Truth, and it is clear that not only did he adopt them from fellow artists, but he equally shared the journalistic conventions of his day, perpetuating and reinforcing ethnic stereotyping. Such “filler cartoons” accentuated supposed foibles and character flaws of “alien elements . . . deemed hopelessly beyond the pale of assimilation into an American community of citizens” (Fischer, 70). Puck, Judge, and Truth all contained such images. What is special about Luks’s art is the extent to which he varied this formula. Several of Luks’s cartoons comment on the perils of earning a living as an artist (Practical Reciprocity [Puck, July 1, 1891,4], Our Table d’hote in Bohemia [Truth, July 1, 1893, back cover]); ridicule German Americans, a group rarely caricatured due to their dominance of the publishing medium and relatively prosperous, assimilated status (Important Commercial Union [Truth, April 2, 1892, 16], Bad Business [Truth, December 13, 1893, 8]); are quasi-autobiographical satires of alcoholics (He Knew His Rights [Truth, October 8, 1891,12]); pointedly reference attitudes toward women (At the Pier [Truth, September 24, 1891,10]); and openly address the relationship between the marketplace and magazine illustration (“Truth” Suggests Some New Ideas for Advertising [Truth, December 3, 1892, back cover]). In at least one additional category of drawings—those of long-bearded Populists representing naive or dangerous political ideas—Luks employed a familiar stereotype yet stripped it of much of its sting. By the early 1890s discontent on the part of midwestern Americans over the depressed state of agriculture and a perceived dominance of the economy by East Coast business interests hostile to cheaper credit and a lower tariff favored by agricultural states led to the rise of a third-party movement known as Populism. Various politicians, including Kansas senator William Alfred Peffer, were elected to Congress with a pledge to secure liberal credit through adoption of a “free silver” standard allowing for the coinage of silver at a parity rate of sixteen ounces of silver to one of gold, altering the sole gold standard on which the country’s currency had been based. ἀ ough not a particularly distinguished or powerful senator for the term he served in Washington between 1891and 1897, Peffer cut a unique figure with his lengthy beard. His midwestern roots, quaint

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Fig. 1-8. Frederick Burr Opper, Spring Nonsense, Puck, April 8, 1891.

dress, and odd appearance led many cartoonists, particularly those employed for Judge and Puck, to caricature him on at least sixty occasions as a rube and a buffoon, the ubiquitous symbol of Populism (Fischer, 47), a trend begun by Frederick Burr Opper’s satire Spring Nonsense (Puck, April 8, 1891; fig. 1-8). ἀ e symbol became a well-established type, its image instantaneously recognized even if the person so satirized was not. It proved to be a convenient and logical choice for Luks to employ, as he did on several occasions—for example, in Wilber Perkins on the Bowery (Truth, February 6, 1892, back cover), and as he would later do in The Tenderloin as the Hayseed Dreamed It Was; The Way the Hayseed Found It appearing in the Verdict (June 19, 1899, 12–13). Interestingly enough, Luks appears to have supported free silver, and so it is somewhat unusual he adopted this anti-Populist image for depicting his figure of a country bumpkin. While employed on the Verdict in 1899, for example, he drew several full-color centerfold cartoons openly supporting William Jennings Bryan and his “free silver” plank, a particularly striking example being Mr. Bryan, Isn’t That a Healthy Tree to Get Your Main Plank From? (Verdict, May 22, 1899, 12–13). One might posit that Luks drew this cartoon solely because Verdict owner and publisher Oliver Belmont demanded anti-McKinley/pro-Bryan images in his magazine rather than from a shared conviction of the truth revealed through such satire, although if that were the case, one would also have to assume Luks had little regard for politics and

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art acted chiefly out of financial necessity. It is more likely, however, that Luks adopted this anti-Populist imagery because it had achieved the status of a recognizable icon, a pictorial code indicating “rube,” “unsophisticated person,” or “country bumpkin,” which, precisely because of its widely recognized iconography, proved ideally suitable for him to adopt to his own devices. During the years 1892, 1893, and through August 1894, Luks devoted a great deal of effort to Truth, producing more than seventy-one drawings in 1892, ninety-two in 1893, and more than fifty in 1894. After executing scores of drawings, Luks was more determined than ever to become a “serious” artist, a desire prompting his return to Europe. On the morning of December 7, 1893, Luks stood on the debarkation wharf at the Erie Basin in Brooklyn waiting to board the Portuguese ship Vega sailing for the Azores. From there he would continue on to Spain and the opportunity to sketch and study the Old Masters, particularly Velázquez, at the Prado. Previous scholars assumed Luks made this trip in May 1892, returning almost a year later (O’Toole, Artistic Legacy, 32). But it is highly improbable Luks could have executed all his drawings for Truth in 1892 and 1893 while in Europe, subsequently sending them back by courier to his employers in New York in timely enough fashion to guarantee meeting his weekly deadlines. In addition to the difficulty such a procedure would pose for producing topical commentary while removed from current events back home, documented evidence recorded and published in 1953 by James Bird Cutter under the title The Voyage of the Vega and Other Tales, or The Birth of Self-Reliance leaves no doubt Luks was still in New York in December 1893 and only boarded the Vega on the morning of December 7, spending the rest of that month shipboard and later in Spain. ἀ e timing also correlates with the irregular production of drawings published in Truth between December 1893 and April 1894. Only two sketches appear in the magazine’s December 9 edition, most certainly produced before Luks’s December departure; only two appear on December 16 and a single drawing on December 23 as opposed to Luks’s average output of four to five drawings per issue. Furthermore, the December 23 drawing is in the nature of an advertisement rather than topical commentary. Although four drawings appear in the December 30 edition, two of these are word puns and could have been produced at any time; there follows a gap of one week, where no Luks drawings appear on January 6, 1894, and only one each occurs on January 13 and January 20, 1894, followed by another gap with no drawings in the January 27 issue and only one on February 3. Another gap lasts until March 3, 1894. For the remainder of March 1894,

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Fig. 1-9. Luks illustrations published in James Bird Cutter, The Voyage of the Vega and Other Tales, or The Birth of Self Reliance, between pages 56 and 57.

only two Luks drawings appear before a typical production schedule resumes with the April 4, 1894, edition, suggesting he finally returned to the United States by that date. Luks traveled in the company of Billy Walsh, editor of Petersen’s Magazine, the two assigned to write about and paint the Azores for a proposed article. During the Atlantic crossing, Luks thoroughly charmed his fellow passengers, making numerous sketches while garnering the rapt attention of his captive admirers: “ἀ ere are strange individuals in this world who seem alien to all we have ever known of men. ἀ ey seem suddenly to have arrived from some other planet to take complete possession of the situation, and by some impelling mark of genius compel absorbing attention, growing into a sort of fascinating adoration. Of such was George B. Luks” (Cutter, 8). Cutter also noted the artist’s voracious appetite for sketching impressions of fellow travelers and scenes of shipboard life upon scraps of paper or backs of envelopes, all the while never ceasing the antic, gymnastic impressions making him an entertaining companion. Luks gifted many of these to his newfound friend, who published them

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art sixty years later as six pages of illustrations in his book (fig. 1-9). Two of these confirm Luks’s artistic ambitions. A careful profile study of the ship’s captain in his trimmed beard and uniform holding his left hand up to the visor of his cap while peering out to sea and the frontal bust of a raven-haired woman wearing a diminutive bonnet adorned with large black bows are annotated with the words, “Watching and waiting/sketch for painting.” A companion sketch depicts sailors pulling at rigging, a gust of wind knocking off the hat of an unsuspecting passenger, and a dapper self-portrait in which the artist appears smoking a cigarette, hands shoved into pants pockets, with an open paint box, palette, and brushes resting on a stool by his side. Executed with rapid strokes of the crayon, they convey Luks’s ability to quickly discern traits of character and convincingly distill and communicate the same. ἀ e Vega carried a cargo of corn for various Azores villages and towns recently scarred by tornadoes, such a charitable voyage offering an explanation why Petersen’s Magazine sent its editor and Luks along to record the venture. Once at its destination, the vessel called at various ports and picturesque harbors seldom seen by ordinary tourists, affording Luks an unparalleled opportunity to sketch the “local color.” His drawings include a quaint streetscape in the village of Horta, character types of Angra, villagers riding donkeys, and the faces of numerous Azorians in their berets, bonnets, and stocking caps. Christmas dinner was enjoyed at the home of Viscount Santa Anna, a veritable Shangri-la of Moorish architecture surrounded by gardens filled with perfumed oleanders and lemon, orange, banana, and fig trees. After a day enjoying the lava hot springs on the island of San Miguel, Luks and Walsh parted company with Cutter and his party. It is not possible to determine how long Luks stayed on in the Azores, but at some point he continued on another vessel to Spain, eventually arriving in Madrid, his ultimate goal being a careful study of Spanish masters at the Prado. Walsh does not appear to have accompanied Luks on this leg of the journey. His solo return to New York may account for why Luks’s illustrations did not appear in Petersen’s Magazine. Once at the Prado, Luks made careful studies after Goya and Velázquez. A partial record survives in his oil copy after Velázquez’s The Infanta Margarita (1659–1660). Velazquez’s full-length painting depicts the young princess bedecked in an enormous farthingale beneath her embroidered gown, arms resting atop her skirt framed by lace cuffs, balloon sleeves, and gold brocade ribbons, her right hand clutching an oversize cloth while her left holds a rose.

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art ἀ e infanta’s flaxen hair, teased and coiffed into a golden arch, frames her face. Velazquez’s remarkably fluid brush, replete with oil glazes, staccato highlights illuminating fabrics of various kinds and substance, and chiaroscuro background convey a palpable atmosphere within which the innocent yet wise figure of the infanta seems to move and breathe, the supple skin of her face suffused with light and life. ἀ e study made after this painting provided Luks with invaluable lessons he would soon apply in his own painted works of East Side youth, in which he aimed, as he said, to capture “the soul of things” (Rehn Papers, Microfilm Reel NY59-17, frame 522). Besides working at the Prado, Luks enjoyed sketching figures encountered on the streets of Madrid and also experimented with watercolor. Two Spaniards, a pencil-on-paper sketch executed at this time, depicts two male figures, the one at left standing, facing right, and wearing a brimmed hat and long coat, the one on the right sporting a cap, striped shirt, and jacket, while on the verso Luks drew a young woman bending over a child. An early Luks watercolor, Ponta Delgada, references the largest island in the Azores and was most probably painted there (Cuba, Kasanof, and O’Toole, 13). One additional work, a graphite and watercolor, Self-Portrait (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden), dates to circa 1893 and bears comparison with the related sketch executed onboard the Vega. Unlike the more distanced view of the latter, with its obvious artist props and dandified public persona, this image affords close, personal scrutiny of Luks, revealing a man with somewhat pudgy features, thinning hair, and pedestrian appearance yet possessed of large, sensitive eyes and kindly mien. Clutching a pipe firmly in his teeth and sporting the outline of a bushy mustache resembling one worn by his father, with an unruly shock of curly hair atop his forehead, he appears every bit the clear-eyed individual scrutinizing self in an attempt to limn with honesty a psychological as well as physical portrait. Luks returned to the United States early in 1894. If the renewed pace of his output for Truth constitutes a reliable guide, by April he resumed full-time work on that periodical, at the same time undertaking a new role as artistreporter for the Philadelphia Press, almost certainly embarking upon this latest endeavor no earlier than late March 1894. It is sometimes claimed Luks begun working for the Press after the first of the year (Perlman, Immortal Eight, 54). Yet if that were true, he would have spent only a few days in Europe, having departed from New York on December 7, 1893; passing eight days in transit to the Azores; remaining there until at least December 25, 1893; then sailing for

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art Spain and journeying to Madrid to paint. Such an itinerary would place Luks in Madrid by December 27 or 28 at the earliest, making it impossible to study and copy artwork at the Prado then sail for the United States in time for a January 1894 start date at the Press. Luks’s experience as a Press artist-reporter proved seminal to his career, not so much for the work accomplished as for the lifelong friends acquired, especially Robert Henri, John Sloan, Everett Shinn, and William Glackens, the future nucleus of the Eight. To conserve funds, Luks roomed with Shinn, the two a veritable study in contrasts. Dashingly handsome, the eighteen-yearold Shinn recently had given up a job designing gas fixtures to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Ten years his senior, the pudgy, balding Luks favored flamboyant corduroy and plaid outfits and drank excessively, requiring the debonair, abstemious, and embarrassed Shinn to rescue him daily from O’Malley’s bar across the street from the Press building (Perlman, Immortal Eight, 54, 57). Despite the disparity in their looks and personalities, the arrangement proved cordial. Working as a team with other artists of the Press, the two made the acquaintance of William Glackens. After Shinn left the Press to join the Philadelphia Inquirer, he in turn met John Sloan, another Academy student, who introduced them both to Robert Henri (O’Toole, Artistic Legacy, 32). A year older than Luks, Henri attended the Pennsylvania Academy in the late 1880s, the Académie Julian in Paris, and finally in 1891the esteemed École des BeauxArts, having achieved a measure of distinction by 1894 as an accomplished painter. Returning to America in 1892, Henri studied portraiture at the Pennsylvania Academy with its principal teacher, ἀ omas Anshutz, and secured a faculty position at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. A charismatic leader and inspiring teacher, Henri befriended younger Academy students, including John Sloan, supporting them in their desire for independent study with the establishment of the Charcoal Club in 1893 and subsequently opening his studio at 806 Walnut Street every Tuesday evening for a discussion group on art, literature, and philosophy, including the thought of Whitman, Emerson, ἀ oreau, Zola, Balzac, and Ibsen (Reich, 86). With his broad, humanitarian outlook, Henri advocated the primacy of individual expression; the preservation of the original, vital idea upon the canvas; and spontaneity of approach in painting as opposed to orthodoxy in subject matter and glossy academic finish.7 ἀ e impact of these Tuesday evening discussions on Sloan, Glackens, and Shinn proved invaluable, but their immediate effect upon Luks

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art at this time is debatable. While Luks remained lifelong friends with Henri, and no doubt took note of the latter’s opinions on the art of Velázquez, Goya, Hals, and the French Impressionists during subsequent discussions, the two artists shared, at most, three or four months time together in 1894, as Luks did not begin at the Press until March or April of that year, while Henri left Philadelphia for a summer stay in Paris, only returning in September, then leaving again in the summer of 1895 for an extended two-year stay in Paris. Yet Henri certainly made Luks’s acquaintance before his 1894 departure, as in a letter to Sloan postmarked July 19, 1894, he wryly noted, “ἀ e Azores seem to have entirely recovered from the ravages of Luks and Walsh.” When Glackens left for an extended period of study in France, Luks presented him with an affectionate caricature (1895; Delaware Art Museum) depicting the wide-eyed, curly haired artist as a naïf buried up to his nose in an oversized Chickasaw collar and flowing bow tie ready to sample and be seduced by the pleasures and delights of Paris. It seems, then, that Luks’s principal association with Henri and the group gathered on Tuesday evenings at 806 Walnut Street was confined to a brief introduction in the spring of 1894 and chiefly to the period between September 1894 and May 1895 and through subsequent discussions with Sloan and others following Henri’s departure for Europe. During these gatherings, Luks excelled as the group comedian, on one occasion frying Welsh rarebit over the gas jet in Henri’s studio while simultaneously uttering a barrage of jokes and witticisms as the hungry artists waited to be served (Sloan, 7). ἀ e bonds of camaraderie thus forged were strengthened further by shared experiences as artist-reporters. ἀr oughout much of 1894 and 1895, Luks, Sloan, Glackens, and, for a brief time, Shinn worked together in the art department of the Press, a dusty room facing Chestnut Street with worn floorboards, creaking desks, old chairs, caricature-covered walls, and the thick odor of cigar smoke hanging in the air (Sloan, 7). While photographs were used in magazines in the 1890s, the pressure of daily deadlines precluded their use in newspapers, which relied instead on a staff of artists to illustrate every conceivable story. When not required by the storyline to fabricate a scene, as often happened for reports on foreign topics or stories set in faraway parts of America, artists hurried to the location of their assignment, where they made quick, shorthand notes, executing a few careful details or an occasional portrait to be used later in a final rendering for the sake of veracity. ἀ ey then dashed back to the Press art room, where teams of artists working together

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art transformed the scribbles into a finished pen-and-ink composition (Perlman, “Drawing on Deadline,” 115–120). ἀ e drawing would next be photographed and a zinc line plate made to be inserted into the appropriate place within the lines of text; the assembled page would then be fashioned into a metal stereoscope to be affixed to the press cylinder for printing. Such a process fostered uniform collaborative anonymity rather than individual creativity. Artists typically did not sign these pen-and-ink compositions, the original drawings of which either did not survive or were consigned afterward to agents who sold them at art fairs, giving a portion of the proceeds to the artists in return for a fixed commission (Sloan, 7). Because of this procedure, it is not possible to ascertain the specific nature and extent of Luks’s collaboration on stories illustrated in the Philadelphia Press between 1894 and 1895,although Benjamin de Casseres recounted a time when Press editor Frank Crane rushed into the art room holding Luks’s still-wet drawing of a courtroom scene complaining the judge’s eyes lacked pupils. When Luks calmly replied the judge’s eyes were closed during the trial, the exasperated Crane grabbed hold of a pen, dotted the eyes, and ran back to the photoengraving room. Turning to Shinn, Luks remarked, “I don’t think the judge was in the courtroom anyway. I’ll lay ten dollars that it was a dummy of the judge on the bench. Sure, he was off playing golf. Sure, his eyes were closed. Wax eyelids melted in the lawyer’s hot arguments. His honor’s face is in the cuspidor by now” (de Casseres, 10). Yet signed newspaper work by Luks does survive in quantity in assignments he executed in the following years for both the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and the New York World, making it is possible to determine his creative process and skills as an artist-reporter. During the time Luks worked as an artist-reporter for the newspapers, the industry underwent extensive transformation. Prior to 1884, American newspapers consisted chiefly of text set in eight to ten columns of small type, a format making it exceedingly inconvenient to print illustrations or blackand-white cartoons in anything larger than a one-column width (Hess and Kaplan, 119). But in 1883 the Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer, heretofore the successful publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, aggressively determined to enter the New York City newspaper market by purchasing the New York World from Jay Gould. He transformed the look of his new paper by employing eyecatching graphics, hiring artists to provide illustrations to accompany stories, and adding cartoons and special feature sections to the Sunday edition. With the intent of expanding newspaper circulation and sales by transforming the

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art

Fig. 1-10.Walt McDougall, The Royal Feast of Belshazzar Blaine, New York World, October 30, 1884.

medium into a popular consumer commodity, Pulitzer further championed the working class, featuring articles the exposed abuses through aggressive investigative reporting (Hess and Kaplan, 121). World reporters highlighted, sometimes fabricated, sensational stories of personal behavior, political corruption—both local and national—grizzly murders, international news, and exposés on everything from slum lords to tainted beef, from Trust cartels to campaigns for safer streets and better schools. ἀ e appeal of this new brand of journalism lay in the combination of a straightforward editorial style, set off by bold typeface headlines, and illustrations—the whole packaged and sold for a more affordable price than standard newspapers (Zurier, 79–82). ἀ e new formula demonstrated its potential when the World published a cartoon by Walt McDougall, The Royal Feast of Belshazzar Blaine (fig. 1-10) in its October 30, 1884, issue just a few days prior to the presidential election, which depicted the Republican candidate feasting with the tycoons of business while a working-class family begged for scraps at the foot of the table. ἀi s election, pitting Democrat Grover Cleveland against Republican senator

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art James G. Blaine of Maine, had been marred by mudslinging and acrimony. On July 21, 1894, the Buffalo Evening Telegraph reported Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child, a scandal boosting the hopes of Republicans. For their part, Democrats seized upon a speech made by Rev. Samuel Burchard, quoting him saying, “We are Republicans and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party (that is, Democrats) whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion,” a slander against the Roman Catholic Church circulated widely, together with thousands of copies of McDougall’s cartoon, among the heavily Catholic Irish and Italian immigrant communities of New York State. On November 4 Cleveland emerged the winner, carrying New York by a few thousand votes, enough to tip the election in his favor. As an aspiring young newspaper artist, Luks would take notice of McDougall’s cartoon, utilizing it as the basis for his own political satire against corporate greed in the election of 1900 appearing in the Verdict (April 3, 1899, 10–11), titled To the Trusts: Eat, Drink and Be Merry, for in 1900 You Die! Simultaneous with the successful development of Pulitzer’s new brand of journalism promoted in the New York World, William Randolph Hearst, wealthy son of a California senator and mine owner, arrived in New York City in 1895to try his hand at journalism, purchasing the New York Journal with the aim of utilizing Pulitzer’s own tactics against him and outpacing the World in circulation and sales (Hess and Kaplan, 121). Armed with millions, Hearst did just that, to the extent of luring away World staff by offering them more money, which Pulitzer, in turn, often matched in an effort to lure staff back. ἀ e socalled circulation wars developing between the two papers directly affected Luks, for the World’s chief cartoonist, Richard Felton Outcault had, between 1895and 1896, transformed his Mickey Dugan character of Hogan’s Alley into one of the most popularly and eagerly awaited features of the paper’s Sunday edition, aided in this regard by the World’s adoption of color presses, making Mickey Dugan instantaneously recognizable in his trademark yellow nightshirt and now appearing in an eight-page World Comic Weekly Supplement. Aware of the huge market potential for comics, Hearst lured Outcault away in October 1896; but Pulitzer, not to be outdone, immediately assigned Luks the task of producing the cartoon, with the result that two rival and simultaneous versions appeared each Sunday, Outcault’s in the Journal and Luks’s in the World. One can trace the rivalry between the two artists as well as their awareness of the market potential of the Yellow Kid in their respective attempts to market their version of Mickey Dugan as the only authentic one.

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art Prior to his employment at the World, however, Luks, as noted, worked on both the Philadelphia Press and Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. He must have enjoyed the heady atmosphere and camaraderie at the Press, and certainly did his part to keep the art room lively. Yet as an aspiring artist, he doubtless tired of the forced anonymity and conformity that particular job demanded. By 1895 he jumped to the rival Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, motivated in part by the opportunity to work independently as a “Special” reporter. A plum job among artist-reporters, “Specials” undertook assignments demanding indepth coverage of a single story, reporting—or in the case of Luks, drawing— an assignment with the promise of having one’s byline prominently attached to the effort (Glackens Papers, Microfilm Reel 4709, frame 646). Luks’s assignment as an artist-reporter for the Bulletin took him to Cuba. By late 1895major American newspapers, spearheaded by the rivalry between Hearst and Pulitzer over circulation and sales, began to agitate in favor of the rebellion brewing in Cuba against Spanish colonial rule, vying with one another to report the most sensational accounts of Spanish atrocities. While Journal artists drew inflammatory pictures of Spanish soldiers strip-searching American women on the high seas, Pulitzer orchestrated a campaign to influence American public opinion against Spain by inventing atrocities, his reporter cabling, “Blood on the road sides, blood in the fields, blood on the doorsteps, blood, blood, blood” (Hess and Kaplan, 122). In order to convey an on-the-spot authenticity and lend credulity to hyped stories of Cuban heroism and Spanish brutality, Hearst and Pulitzer dispatched journalists and artists to report directly from the island. Not to be outdone by New York papers, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin sent reporter Maurice McCarthy O’Leary to that island in late December 1895 to cover the growing insurrection, with Luks assigned as special artist-reporter, making his mark with original, signed drawings to accompany O’Leary’s articles. Departing New York City after January 1, 1896, Luks and O’Leary’s transport docked in Havana harbor as sunset approached on the evening of January 5. Even at that early date—war between the United States and Spain would not be declared until April 25, 1898—the security situation had deteriorated sufficiently with the outbreak of the second Cuban insurrection led by José Marti, Máximo Gómez, and Antonio Maceo, to require restriction of foreign correspondents to the capital as insurgents devastated the countryside and Spanish forces responded by devising a trocha system of fortified trenches across the island and reinforcing the capital (Smith, 8). ἀi s quasi-confinement obliged

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art journalists and artist-reporters either to glean news from Cubans or Spanish troops returning from battle, many accounts related over drinks in hotel bars, or risk unprotected forays into the countryside. Luks chiefly relied upon the former strategy, though on one occasion he apparently ventured forth by train to inspect war damage, only to dive for cover when his transport came under enemy fire. After the gunshots died down, he looked up to see other journalists sitting calmly; embarrassed, he shouted, “You fellows sit up there. I have a future” (Perlman, Immortal Eight, 63). Since Stephen Crane and Richard Harding Davis, two journalists reported to have accompanied Luks on this trip, did not arrive in Cuba until 1898 and Luks departed the island in early March 1896, doubt is cast upon this claim. Yet it is highly improbable that the swaggering Luks would recount a story where his actions appear cowardly, especially as he often claimed later to be “the only man here who’s got the salt to go out with the soldiers.” It would appear, then, that Luks’s tale may be true but that he fabricated details knowing full well these men were in Cuba during hostilities as opposed to his own service in the years leading up to war, most likely a strategy crafted to deflect attention from the fact of his inglorious dismissal for alcoholism a mere two months after his arrival. A letter dated February 14, 1896, in which Luks writes to Shinn of his recent trip to Pico del Rio emphasizing his abstinence and seriousness of purpose, lends credence to this supposition (Shinn Papers, Microfilm Reel 952, frame 909). Despite drinking heavily, Luks completed thirty-four drawings for the newspaper, the first appearing on January 15 and the last on March 28 subsequent to his firing and departure. ἀ ese drawings display the full repertoire of techniques expected of artist-reporters, including imaginary sketches based on secondhand reports (Troops Guarding the Great Bridge [Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 22, 1896, 1]); drawings derived from photographs (General Cepero the Captive Insurgent [Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 23, 1896, 1]); compositions contrived from bits of observed reality carefully composed and altered to fit the situation (Sacking of the Town of Jaruco, Cuba [Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 2, 1896, 1]); and genuinely picturesque, panoramic views one might expect from an accomplished artist (Grand Cathedral of Havana [Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 31,1896, 1]). ἀ eir placement on the front page of the newspaper evidences their role in promoting both the news story and sales, while their increasingly violent nature, ending with panoramic scenes of pitched battles between insurgents and Royalist troops, demonstrates the manner in which editors orchestrated images to drum up public

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art support for war. ἀ eir existence indicates the extent to which Luks’s published art fully accorded with the expectations and demands placed upon newspaper artist-reporters and thus the mainstream quality of this work. Yet simultaneous with these drawings, Luks also employed watercolor to render close-up portraits of Cuban peasants and street-types, some of which he later reworked as oil paintings. ἀ ese not only provide a good indication of his ability to capture and record ordinary folk engaged in quotidian activities, something that would mark his pictures of circa 1905–1910 of Lower East Side subjects, but also hint at his seriousness of purpose and skill in discerning character and discovering a certain beauty in the commonplace. Forced confinement to the capital, the stifling tropical heat, and the necessity of frequenting the hotel bar to obtain information proved too much of a temptation for Luks. After two months, the Bulletin fired him for drunkenness, unceremoniously putting him on a ship bound for New York City, where he landed cold, penniless, and hungry in early March 1896. Within two weeks Luks resourcefully parleyed his acquaintance with Arthur Brisbane, managing editor of Pulitzer’s New York World newspaper, whom he met on the return voyage from Europe two years previous, into a full-time position as illustrator on the paper.8 With this new job in America’s most dynamic and energetic city, Luks began an important chapter in his life, one reuniting him with his former colleagues from Philadelphia and giving fresh impetus to his desire to paint. From March 15 until October 11, 1896, Luks worked as one of many staff artist-reporters on Pulitzer’s World. ἀ e circumstances and conditions of such employment have been noted, but what is not often realized is the extent to which Luks’s drawings correlate with the more sensational stories featured in Pulitzer’s paper. ἀ ese range from illustrations of the Cuban insurrection to bizarre stories of mass murders and grotesque human behavior, often requiring him to purely imagine and invent the required scene. In tandem with such sketches, Luks also executed a number of advertisements promoting the Sunday edition of the World featuring scruffy kids and comic figures often acting out antics or jokes to grab the attention of viewers and subliminally convey the idea that reading the Sunday papers was not only fun but also entertaining. ἀ ese qualities persuaded Pulitzer to select Luks to continue Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley series after October 11once the latter artist joined the staff of the rival Journal. And the dual functional requirements of his earlier World assignments may help explain why Luks’s Yellow Kid predominantly treats serious topical issues, such as the tainted milk scare,

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art immigrant assimilation and the fear of chaos, politics, and outright caricature of the rich and well-to-do. While the principal characters of Hogan’s Alley derive from Outcault, what is also special about Luks’s series is the extent to which the denizens of his cartoon alley refrain from repeating racial and ethnic stereotypes current in American popular culture and perpetuated in illustrated journals and newspaper cartoons (Fischer, 69–100). ἀ ey offer instead an essentially benign view of life in the tenements and the people who inhabited them. ἀ e same cannot always be said of Outcault’s cartoons, where African Americans routinely appear as caricatured and gratuitous violence breaks out among the Hogan’s Alley gang. However, Luks’s optimistic characterization of ethnic immigrant types is compromised by his experiments with his own comic series variously titled Mose the Trained Chicken, the Kalsomine Family, the Little Nippers, and Mose’s Incubator. ἀ e turn away from Hogan’s Alley to these original characters most probably resulted from continuing disputes between Outcault, Luks, Pulitzer, Hearst, the World, and the Journal over the image of Mickey Dugan and the authenticity of each newspaper’s and artist’s version of the cartoon strip. In deriving his African American characters from minstrelsy, the vaudeville stage circuit, and journalistic convention, Luks perpetuated in these new series the same attitudes about race displayed in his earlier drawings for Puck and Truth, and the reappearance of such attitudes further challenges the notion that the work of Ashcan artists broke new ground with respect to representing minorities. Unlike Henri or George Bellows, Luks’s later paintings, with possibly one or two exceptions, refrain from portraying African American subjects, and it may be that he was unable to bridge the chasm of race in America while more successfully overcoming the ethnic divide.9 Further complicating this picture, the Mose’s Incubator cartoons, where new pairs of twins are hatched each week after Mose places objects in his magic incubator and children are invited to write in to suggest names for the hatchlings and win prizes, perpetuates the link between the comics as market commodity and popular entertainment. At other times, as in Mose’s Incubator, an Easter Parade in Central Park (New York World, April 3, 1898, Comic Supplement, 8), this series suggests the potential of successfully integrating and assimilating these alien elements into American culture. ἀ e picture that emerges, then, from Luks’s attitude toward race as reflected in his graphic art is an ambivalent one, and such ambivalence mirrors the changing demographics of New York City’s population in the closing decades of the nineteenth century when Luks

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art worked for the popular journals and newspapers. Luks would cease to work for the World in 1898. With the exception of Mose’s Incubator, with its direct appeal to children, Luks’s comics were geared toward adults, who, after all, purchased the newspapers, though children certainly enjoyed looking at the pictures. For more youthful audiences, an equivalent to the popular illustrated magazines and newspapers emerged in the burgeoning market for pulp fiction and dime novels, of which the Horatio Alger books and the Buffalo Bill series are perhaps the best-known examples. Luks’s efforts in this regard include four full-page and more than twelve thumbnail illustrations for a pulp book published in 1892, Dr. Dodd’s School, by James L. Ford. Later book illustrations Luks provided for short stories by Alfred Henry Lewis and published in 1898 (reissued in 1899 and 1900) under the collective title Sandburrs, though somewhat conventional in technique, reflect a slightly more jaundiced outlook consistent with the tenor of Lewis’s stories meant for a sophisticated, adult audience. Here, as in his black-and-white cartoons for Puck and Truth, Luks used the medium of pen and ink. But he also employed fluid gray washes set off with dark accents and white highlights, allowing for a more emotional expression than the simple black-and-white of ink cartoons. Both techniques are ideally suited for the demands of magazine illustration and were also practiced by leading book illustrators of the period, such as William Crawford (1869–1944), who, in addition to illustrating for Century, Everybody’s Magazine, Collier’s, and McClure’s, also worked for Puck and contributed to a number of western-themed books. Additionally, Luks certainly knew of the examples of his Ashcan colleague William Glackens, whose illustrations of the war in Cuba appeared in McClure’s at this time, as did drawings by Everett Shinn. ἀ e tales and drawings in Sandburrs are linked by their sardonic qualities. Each short story is also structured around a memorable plot twist not unlike the way newspapers of the era recounted sensational stories. Whether Lewis asked Luks to illustrate specific stories or allowed him to select the tales, Luks invariably chose to draw pivotal moments in the plot, and those selections reveal much about his understanding of irony coupled with the power of an image to move the reader and evoke strong feelings, qualities serving him in good stead when he next illustrated for the Verdict. ἀ e Verdict was the brainchild of millionaire banker and financier Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont (1858–1908). Although Belmont was not reticent about displaying his wealth, commissioning Richard Morris Hunt to design a fifty-

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art two-room Louis XIII–style chateau in Newport, Rhode Island, he remained a staunch Democrat his entire life. Belmont’s wife, Alva Vanderbilt, distinguished herself as an active suffragist and president of the National Women’s Party. Concern over the defeat of Bryan in the 1896 election and alarm at the continued influence of the radical Bryan faction within the Democratic Party drove Belmont to finance a new journal to compete with Puck, heretofore the leading pro-Democratic journal that stood in opposition to Judge, its pro-Republican counterpart. Belmont believed Puck too tame in countering the anti-Democratic, anti-Populist onslaughts of Judge and ineffective in advancing the positive aspects of Bryan’s message favoring coinage of silver and a lower tariff. He further found Puck’s satires against McKinley to be correspondingly weak in exploiting the Republican president’s vulnerabilities. With a mandate and the financial backing to develop the Verdict into a high-quality, glossy periodical to rival Judge and Puck, the Verdict’s editors lavished attention upon eyecatching full-color front covers, double-page centerfolds, back cover cartoons, and numerous interior black-and-white illustrations, many produced by Luks. Unfortunately, the effort proved costly to sustain. Belmont served as a delegate from New York to the 1900 Democratic National Convention and pinned high hopes on Bryan’s election; his own election as a Democratic representative from New York to the Fifty-seventh Congress (from March 4, 1900, to March 3, 1903) further complicated his efforts to devote attention to his periodical, and the subsequent reelection of McKinley in 1900 doomed the periodical to extinction. It ceased publication in 1902. ἀ e Verdict illustrations unabashedly criticize the president, his imperialist policies with respect to the Philippines and Hawaii, and, most notably, his cronyism and financial dependence upon Ohio businessman Marcus Hanna and his Trust associates. Luks’s reliance upon precedents established by ἀ omas Nast, Homer Davenport, and Frederick Burr Opper in pillorying machine politics and Hanna has been noted. But what is interesting is how he added original flourishes of his own devising to such precedents, crafting them into fresh satires (One Sees His Finish Unless Good Government Retakes the Ship [Verdict, May 22, 1899, 10–11],The Jeffersonian Banquet of the Trusts [Verdict, April 24, 1899, 10–11],and How It’s Done in Wall Street [Verdict, May 1, 1899, 10–11]).ἀ e no-holds-barred approach of such drawings raises the important issue of Luks’s political leanings. To a far greater extent than today, nineteenthcentury newspapers and magazines openly advocated for particular political parties. John Sloan reminisced about the pro-Republican bias of the editors of

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art the Philadelphia Press, where Democrats were equated with roaches crawling about on the pressroom floor (Sloan, 7). Judge’s espousal of the high tariff and against free silver and Populism were standard reoccurring features in both editorials and cartoons. ἀ e nearly unbroken string of Republican presidents elected since the Civil War (with the notable exception of Grover Cleveland, president from 1885 to 1889 and again 1893 to 1897) bred a certain degree of frustration among Democrats with the seemingly limited ability of Puck to effectively convey Democratic ideals. Belmont’s determination to change this with the Verdict meant its cartoonists were expected to deliver excoriating satire. Yet it is difficult to imagine Luks contributing the drawings he did simply as a matter of occupational necessity. He was gainfully employed at the World, encouraged by that newspaper’s crusades against such corporate giants as the New York Central, Standard Oil Company, and the Bell Telephone monopoly to expose corporate abuses; the World’s penchant for publicity “stunts” further provided ample opportunities for satire (Mott, 436–438), and he did not need to make the switch to the Verdict. It is also unlikely Belmont would have considered Luks as an employee for the new type of national, pro-Democratic journal he envisioned if Luks did not share at some level Belmont’s philosophy and outlook. ἀ e opportunity to be featured as the lead artist in a national political journal, the probable corresponding increase in salary such a position commanded, the potential of such a post to catapult one into a position of national prominence, as had been the case with ἀ omas Nast and Joseph Keppler—all of these factors must have influenced Luks’s decision to become an artist for the Verdict. What remains debatable is the extent to which Belmont’s own views influenced the acerbity of Luks’s satires. At this time Luks also received encouragement to devote greater attention to painting, urgently prodded in that direction by his friend and erstwhile World colleague William Glackens and by his New York City reunion with Henri, Sloan, and Shinn. His art interests are evident in two works from 1899, a pastel and charcoal drawing, Street Scene (fig. 1-11),and an oil painting, The Amateurs. Street Scene depicts a streetscape crowded with children gathered to listen to a hurdy-gurdy, or barrel organ, player. While the location is not specified, such portable musical instruments were often found in poorer immigrant neighborhoods, especially among Italian Americans. If that is the case here, the scene may well record an incident in the vicinity of Mulberry, Mott, Bleecker, or Carmine streets, for in the 1890s over half of New York’s Italians lived in the three wards bordering upon Canal Street in

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art

Fig. 1-11.Street Scene, pastel and charcoal, Portland (Maine) Museum of Art.

lower Manhattan (Gabaccia, 235). A near contemporary newspaper account from the May 6, 1906, Brooklyn Standard Union remarked at length upon the anonymous figure of “the music man with his street piano,” identifying him as an Italian who “as everybody knows . . . caters principally to children.” While replete with stereotypes, the article offers a remarkably positive assessment of the phenomenon as an introduction for many street kids to classical repertoire. ἀ e essentially benign portrayal of just such a character in Street Scene indicates that Luks shared the positive assessment of street musicians reported in the newspaper, an estimation contrasting sharply with observations made by Jacob Riis in How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York, published only nine years earlier, excoriating Italian immigrants as “ignorant,” “unconquerably suspicious,” and “helpless.” While Luks did share racial assumptions of (white) American society that limited his direct engagement with the people he depicted and often manifested itself in crude parody, he was able to transcend many of these by embracing the American mythology of self-reliance and striving for betterment. If simplistic, such a paradigm enabled him to discover a vibrant human spirit where others saw only squalor. In Street Scene, throngs of children appear lively, curious, and, significantly, relatively well dressed. ἀ ey wear hats, coats, shoes, and clothes without holes or patches. Even the delivery boy clad in a brown suit and balancing

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art a hefty yellow crate atop his youthful shoulders appears to be unfatigued by his burden. A toddler wears a smart red coat and bonnet trimmed with white; another girl sports a cream-colored beret coordinating with her skirt. Several girls at the right face each other to form a square while dancing in the street. ἀ e strong accents of colored chalk in the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, with a complement of green indicating the tarpaulin protecting the street organ from dust and grime, form pleasing areas that carry the eye throughout the composition, generating a perpetual sense of motion and action appropriate for a scene depicting the ceaseless activity of children dancing to music. In Hogan’s Alley, Luks humorously conveyed something of the crowded nature of similar streets teeming with children everywhere one looked. In Street Scene, such throngs appear natural. ἀi s carefully recorded scene executed with sure strokes of black chalk, white highlights, and colored pastels also parallels in many respects the drawing technique visible in the urban streetscapes of Everett Shinn, a lasting testament to the friendship between the two artists harkening back to days when they roomed together as reporters for the Philadelphia Press. It further replicates the focus upon quotidian subjects constituting a staple of early Edison films that by 1896 were publicly shown in motion picture halls, providing a link between Luks’s interest in painting and drawing real-life genre of the Lower East Side and popular culture of the era (Matthews and Musser, 128–129). Luks’s relationship with the popular arts, especially vaudeville, extended back to his days as a teenager when he toured the country with his brother and bore fruit in his Hogan’s Alley cartoons—another popular culture medium— and in The Amateurs. In the nineteenth century, popular American theater constituted a locus where divergent attitudes about class and status were played out. As the century wore on, the tradition of boisterous, vocal audiences gave way to a more British mode of polite and passive spectatorship as an emerging bourgeoisie sought to distance themselves from the democratic participation of working-class Americans; rowdy spectatorship became for turn-of-the-century audiences a marker of class, and vaudeville, in particular, the place where the older, democratic participatory theater experience survived (Kasson, 31). In 1915, when Luks commented on his 1899 painting The Amateurs, whose alternate title is The Vaudeville Singers, he referred precisely to this phenomenon: “[I] felt very deeply when I was painting it. . . . At the time I was doing a good deal of potboiling in the form of posters for those extravagant melodramas which were in such favor then; and so I was quite in

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art the atmosphere of this sort of thing. I’ve attended dozens of ‘amateur nights,’ and I like those kids that get up there and make fools of themselves. ἀ ey’re not always such fools as they act” (Bookman, January 1915, 58). ἀ e courage demonstrated by the youthful performers in The Amateurs, who risk ridicule and abuse, bears this out. Luks portrays them standing stiffly at the very edge of the proscenium stage, where footlights throw up a harsh light wonderfully captured in reflections upon starchy white ruffles and folds of the girl’s dress, the salmon pink sheen of her waist ribbon, and the contrast between shadowed foreheads and eyes versus the pasty glow on chin and cheeks. It is evident that both children have worn their Sunday-best clothes for the occasion, an indication of the importance they—and perhaps their proud parents—attach to this public event. While their ethnicity is unspecified, they may be Italian, an immigrant group noted for musical and theatrical performances. Organizations like the Sons of Italy often organized performing bands; on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, religious processions included costumed interpreters and the singing of popular songs and hymns, and frequently gave rise to amateur theater clubs in church basements; the commedia dell’arte tradition—itself a type of popular street theater—thrived in rented Bowery halls, where farces were presented in Neapolitan or Sicilian dialect, vocal audiences shouting and interacting with the performers; and popular arias from the tradition of grand opera were known and sung by many, the recordings of the renowned Enrico Caruso soon to be regarded as a source of ethnic pride among Italian immigrants (Mangione and Morreale, 308–310). Yet this painting also represents something subtler. Vaudeville became the arena where New Yorkers separated by class or ethnicity interacted and communicated (Snyder, xvi). Because of the earnestness and gumption of the singers in The Amateurs—their “striving,” as Luks called it—a new, emergent identity as Americans is born out of their experience of rubbing shoulders with and learning from immigrant others. ἀ eir predicament carries with it the potential to relax the artificial boundaries between ethnicity and class, and this predominantly celebratory aesthetic choice on the part of Luks indicates the extent to which he sympathized with the democratic, working-class audiences who attended these events. ἀi s would continue to be the tone of his major canvases painted in 1905 and 1907, works such as The Spielers, Little Madonna, The Wrestlers, Widow McGee, and others. ἀ e rejection of such paintings from the annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design eventually led Robert Henri (who, though an Academician, championed the

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art work of his friends, and felt the sting of rebuke when two of his three paintings attained only a cursory approval in the 1907 Academy show) to propose an alternative exhibition venue for his and his colleagues’ works. ἀ at proposal grew to become the now-famous 1908 Macbeth Gallery show, an exhibition that, when it opened on February 3, broke attendance records for an art show, engendered huge crowds milling outside the gallery trying to gain admittance, caused an enormous stir in the press, and went on tour to major East Coast and midwestern cities. After February 1908, Luks’s standing and that of his colleagues grew steadily, if gradually. ἀ ough he declared he gave up illustration for painting in 1900, Luks actually continued to draw voraciously, filling two notebooks, one in 1900 and a second in 1915. A return trip to Paris in 1902 resulted in numerous drawings, and a day spent at the Bronx Zoo in May 1904 enabled him to produce dozens of insightful animal sketches. During these years, Luks also accepted an invitation from Glackens to contribute drawings for a deluxe illustrated edition of the translated works of Charles Paul de Kock (1793–1871), ribald tales set in France during the time of the Restauration published by the firm of Frederick J. Quinby and Sons. As he had done for earlier book projects, Luks chose to illustrate pivotal moments in the plot, his felicitous manipulation of pen and ink facilitating communication of the story’s drama. By 1912 Luks earned a comfortable enough living from his art to move into a large north-facing studio in High Bridge Park. Here his focus shifted away from East Side subjects to painting light-filled, impressionistic images of children and their nannies relaxing and playing in the nearby park in all seasons of weather. With the outbreak of World War I, Luks painted dramatic oils of troop parades and Allied victories, including such images as The Bersiglieri, The Blue Devils on Fifth Avenue, and Czecho-Slovak Army Entering Vladivostok, Siberia in 1918. He also expanded his repertoire further by traveling to Nova Scotia, Maine, Boston, and the Pennsylvania coal country of his boyhood, seeking out new motifs. All the while he continued to paint plebian subjects, gamins and poor elderly women being a particular reoccurring focus in his work. And he constantly roamed the streets, parks, and sidewalks of New York City making sketches. ἀ ough he achieved a coveted position as an instructor at the Art Students League of New York City by 1921, his perpetual drinking, ribald language, and lack of self-discipline led to his leaving the school in 1924 and opening the George Luks School of Painting. By the early 1920s, Luks was no longer viewed as a radical, controversial painter; his subjects and technique

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art were considered by most to be mainstream, if not slightly passé, given the introduction and rise of European modernism following the spectacular display of contemporary art at the 1913 New York International Exhibition of Modern Art (Armory Show). It was at this time Luks returned to magazine illustration, establishing a long-lasting relationship with Vanity Fair and submitting occasional drawings to the New Yorker. Luks selected five sketches of a polo contest as his first contribution to Vanity Fair. ἀ ese drawings appeared in the July 1914 issue, inaugurating a twenty-year association with the magazine. He continued to submit to Vanity Fair every other year until 1920, after which time he contributed annually, his last effort appearing in the October 1929 edition, with a subsequent posthumous entry appearing in 1934. ἀ ese polo sketches indicate the shift in Luks’s fortunes from outsider artist to mainstream celebrity. Yet they also provide a clue as to the type of subject Vanity Fair deemed appropriate. Unlike late-nineteenth-century magazines, Vanity Fair abstained from overtly political content. Positioning itself as a magazine for leisured, refined, well-todo New Yorkers, the magazine enjoyed a more exclusive readership and limited market appeal and set itself apart from other popular illustrated weeklies of the period such as Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, McClure’s, and Ladies’ Home Journal, all of which catered to the broad middle-class market. Vanity Fair contained sophisticated articles on exotic resorts, light commentary, occasional short stories or human-interest features, and theater and opera reviews. Its advertisements focused on selling luxury consumer goods such as furs, automobiles, fine liquors, and personal grooming and beauty products. If the magazine carried cartoons, they tended to be small, blackand-white drawings, often with droll punch lines geared to upper-class tastes in humor. What the magazine sought in hiring Luks was, no doubt, the cachet derived from having a major New York painter, whose exhibitions were widely reviewed in the New York Times throughout the 1920s, furnish drawings for its readership. Luks responded to the magazine’s sophisticated veneer by carefully recycling sketches he made of people actually observed throughout New York—in the library, in city parks and neighborhoods, at the burlesque—or imagined from listening to the voices of radio personalities, as well as satires of bohemian and art types derived from his experience teaching at the Art Students League and as a painter uncomfortable with modernism. All thirty-five individual entries he submitted to Vanity Fair are each comprised of five or six

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A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art drawings grouped under the heading of a specific topic annotated with mildly sarcastic, witty, barbed commentary appropriate for the sophisticated tastes of Vanity Fair’s readers. ἀi s commentary is significant to the extent that it influences one’s interpretation of Luks’s drawings and marks a rare instance of collaboration between the artist and the magazine’s copy editor. Unlike most of Vanity Fair’s regularly occurring cartoons, Luks’s drawings fill an entire page and constitute a special feature. But with the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president in November 1932 and the promised repeal of Prohibition, Luks came full circle, revisiting the saloon world of turn-of-the-century New York by creating a nostalgic series of book illustrations, something last attempted in 1904. He conceived of making eleven grisaille sketches of famous New York drinking spots to accompany O Keg America! a planned book by Benjamin de Casseres celebrating repeal with an affectionate look at the Gay Nineties. Although he succeeded in completing eleven drawings, Luks tragically ended his life in a drunken brawl early on the morning of October 29, 1933. His body was discovered in a Sixth Avenue alley beneath the elevated tracks later that morning. With this background of the life and times of George B. Luks as our starting point, we can now examine his graphic art in greater detail.

Chapter Two

An Illustrator Comes of Age On May 27, 1891, Puck published its first cartoon by George Luks. ἀ ough freelancing his drawing to Joseph Keppler’s magazine at the standard rate of five dollars a cartoon, Luks well may have hoped this initial achievement would induce Keppler to offer regular employment in the manner of Frederick Burr Opper and that such work would eventually lead to an assignment to draw color lithographs, three of which Keppler featured in every magazine issue and a prime reason why his journal soon outstripped Harper’s in popularity. Luks also may have hoped his German background and training at Düsseldorf would have impressed Keppler sufficiently to induce him to provide further work. Yet that hope proved short-lived, as over the next eight months his concomitant vaudeville tour interrupted his efforts, and he contributed only nine cartoons. Illustrated magazines often featured black-and-white “filler” cartoons poking fun at ethnic immigrants and racial minorities; situational gags in which decadent society fops, college louts, cunning farmers, city slickers, or emancipated women received the brunt of humor were also popular (Fischer, 70). Given this context, it is both original and unusual that four of the nine cartoons Luks published in Puck lampoon none of these standard types. Rather, they are semiautobiographical to the extent they comment wryly upon [ 47 ]

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An Illustrator Comes of Age the life of a struggling artist and his crafty attempts at procuring a meal or getting paid for art. While African Americans were often depicted as shirking work or conniving to procure what they desired without honest labor, reinforcing the dominant cultural view of their alien and marginal status within respectable, hard-working, honest (white) society (Fischer, 72–74), such stereotypes were not commonly used to poke fun at artists. ἀ ough artists were sometimes suspect for engaging in work deemed not to be actual labor, and thus their manner of earning a living could be viewed on occasion as not quite masculine, here, too, the canard of foppishness often appeared in cartoons in the context of satire aimed at high society rather than at painters or sculptors per se. ἀ e four cartoons Luks produced—The Poet’s Mead (Puck, May 27, 1891, 218), Practical Reciprocity (Puck, July 1, 1891,4), A Dead Open and Shut Game (Puck, November 4, 1891,165), An Official Decision (Puck, November 11,1891, 178)—are unusual for focusing upon clever artists who outwit normally streetwise saloon keepers or savvy editors to attain food or money, and it may well have been this degree of originality that interested Keppler in publishing them in his magazine. The Poet’s Mead presents a six-panel sequence where a longhaired author stands in an editor’s office while attempting to move the man to tears with his dramatic reading. Successful, the poet receives a check for $1.50 and exits to the cashier’s room to collect his reward. More apropos, and perhaps based on Luks’s actual experience finagling free lunches at saloons, Practical Reciprocity (fig. 2-1) employs a similar sequential formula in which two artists holding portfolios under their arms are first seen conspiring together outside a saloon where a sandwich board advertises “free lunch today.” ἀ e somewhat paunchy figure standing at the left, wearing checkered slacks; scissortail jacket; polka-dot vest; long, curly hair; and top hat may be modeled on Luks, who affected outlandish bohemian dress while he studied art in Paris as well as during the time of his employment on the Philadelphia Press in 1884. ἀ e dire circumstances that compel the artists to enact their con game may also reference the precarious state of making a living at the time Luks and his brother, Will, toured in vaudeville, sleeping in cheap rooming houses and enacting slapstick skits with titles such as “Keeping the Wolf from the Door,” a reference to both actual hunger and the content of their act. In the Puck cartoon, the two conspirators subsequently enter the bar, where one holds up his portfolio before the bartender, obscuring the latter’s view of the free lunch table while the artist’s cohort gorges himself. ἀ e two then switch places

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-1. Practical Reciprocity, Puck, July 1, 1891, 4.

and after both eat their fill quickly exit. Too late, the bartender discovers the plundered lunch counter. A Dead Open and Shut Game repeats this scenario except that only one artist is present, and he is ultimately foiled at purloining victuals by a crafty bartender, who rigs up a lid on a pulley with a sign reading “no beer, no lunch,” which clamps down over the provisions in the nick of time. ἀ e fourth artist-themed drawing depicts two individuals out walking who encounter each other on a country lane. ἀ e elder gentleman addresses a dapper, younger man (the artist) standing opposite him. When quizzed about his salubrious mood, the dandy replies, “My paintings have been declared dutiable at the custom-house as objects of art, old fellow—just think of that!” ἀi s sketch provides the first indication of a theme Luks would rail against throughout his life: support for foreign artists and a preference for Old Master paintings by American art patrons instead of the nurture of native talent. With the exception of this last-mentioned cartoon, these drawings are also notable for unfolding their story in multipaneled images, an early representation of sequential time and character development that would soon become standard fare as cartoons evolved.

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Fig. 2-2. A Slight Misunderstanding, Puck, October 21, 1891, 318.

ἀ e five remaining Puck drawings preview themes Luks would treat in numerous sketches for Truth, a rival magazine where he would work for the next three years. A Slight Misunderstanding (Puck, October 21, 1891,138; fig. 2-2), is the most important of these both for clues it provides about Luks’s working method as well as for its early depiction of tenement life, a subject Luks would sketch and paint in profusion while roaming the Lower East Side after his move to New York City in 1896. ἀ e depiction of city urchins in cartoons seems to have originated in the early 1870s in various drawings by Michael Angelo Woolf appearing in the illustrated humor magazine Wild Oats (Gordon, 25; Blackbeard, 17–19). Wolfe further developed this theme in cartoons submitted in the 1890s to Life. His and Luks’s contemporary Richard Felton Outcault also began drawing his soon-to-be-famous tenement character Mickey Dugan of Hogan’s Alley at this time.1 ἀ e earliest Outcault cartoons in which Dugan is discernable were not published until 1894–1895 in Truth, though Outcault certainly acquired the habit of roaming the city streets before then, observing the figures he saw, and making comical sketches after them, many of which featured African Americans living in the fictitious borough of Possumville and Irish street children. Such contemporary examples provided models for Luks’s own work, although it certainly must be noted that in sketches Luks made while traveling in Europe, such as Child Eating Apple (1884), Man With Basket (1889), and Travelers (ca. 1889), he had demonstrated a parallel interest in recording the street figures he encountered. Luks further absorbed firsthand the stereotyped conventions of African American, Irish, and Jewish ethnic humor prevalent in vaudeville. All these instances provided alternative sources for his comic material.

An Illustrator Comes of Age In A Slight Misunderstanding, a well-dressed lad carrying a balloon approaches a street corner, where a tough-looking shoeshine boy in ill-fitting clothes smokes a cigarette. ἀ e tough pops the balloon with his stogie, precipitating a fistfight between the two. ἀ e smartly dressed boy emerges triumphant, smoking the cigarette as the ruffian mopes. A comparison between the two figures reveals important differences. ἀ e affluent boy is merely an outline, his face blank except for the very last frame, where he evidences schematic eyes and lips. ἀ ere is little elaboration of clothing other than two vertical lines indicating suspenders and diagonal stripes for a flowing bow tie. In his stock dress and deportment he resembles the all-American type popularized in Horatio Alger’s (1832–1899)illustrated adventure books, and the final frame of Luks’s cartoon sequence, where virtue triumphs over adversity, entirely accords with the tenor of Alger’s novels.2 ἀ e shoeshine boy, contrastingly, is carefully rendered with pursed lips, pug nose, eyelids, brows, and shaggy hair. His baggy pants have volume and shading, as do the upturned collar and oversized sleeves of his shirt. ἀ e rakish angle of his cap, the slouch of hands shoved into pockets, the shape of his mouth dragging on his cigarette, and the carefully rendered shoeshine kit itself indicate their origin in observed reality. ἀi s drawing demonstrates that at least three years prior to starting as a newspaper artist-reporter in 1894, Luks developed the habit of strolling about inner-city neighborhoods observing, sketching, and devising compositions to serve in good stead when required in an illustration. ἀ e remaining four drawings in Puck are less original and employ well-worn stereotypes of the Irish, Jews, society fops, and con men. ἀ e cursory manner with which the middle-class child is drawn in A Slight Misunderstanding bears comparison with the sketches Luks drew in 1892 to illustrate Dr. Dodd’s School by James L. Ford, a tale of juvenile fiction in the manner of the Horatio Alger books, where youthful virtue triumphs over bullying. Dr. Dodd’s School recounts the saga of upperclassmen at the school who form a secret Wig-Wam League to protect underclassmen from harassment by the Jackos gang. But the resolve of the Wig-Wammers is constantly challenged by mischievous underclassmen, by the plots of the Jackos to subvert order, and by a new arrival, a prissy Boston boy named Christmas. All ends happily, however, when Christmas proves his valor in rescuing a stranger drowning in an ice-clogged river, when the Jackos gang are defeated and expelled from the school, and when Dr. Dodd reestablishes discipline based on the moral courage and athleticism exhibited by the heroic upperclassmen. Most

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Fig. 2-3. Purdy and Christmas Rescuing “Big” Burns, 1892, photogravure illustration from James L. Ford, Dr. Dodd’s School, between pages 194 and 195.

drawings are small ink sketches in the upper left corner at the beginning of each chapter. But four full-page pen-and-ink drawings are also included. ἀ e most interesting, Purdy and Christmas Rescuing “Big” Burns (fig. 2-3), revolves around the turning point in the story, when the “mammy-coddled” Christmas suddenly musters up courage to rescue the former school leader

An Illustrator Comes of Age with the help of Purdy, a Jacko gang member who subsequently forswears his evil ways. Amid a bleak, snow-covered landscape, the two stand on an ice floe and strain backward as they pull Burns from the river. Strokes of the pen define bodies, tree limbs, rippled waters, and ice floes. ἀ e action appears stiff, flat, and lifeless, and contrasts with the more realistic rendering of the street tough observed in A Slight Misunderstanding, an indication, perhaps, of the potboiler nature of this project undertaken more for financial remuneration than out of conviction over the novel’s uplifting message and an early indication how, throughout his various graphic assignments, Luks would lavish greater attention upon illustrations of ordinary types he observed from his city wanderings than from imagined renderings of the well-to-do, whose conventional mores he failed to share. Luks’s many Truth cartoons treat the theme of race and ethnicity over sixty-eight times, by far the largest such category of his images appearing in that magazine. Several of these comprise standard, reoccurring fare for the black-and-white cartoons appearing in popular illustrated magazines of the era. ἀ e insult of the caricatured physiognomy assigned African Americans in such cartoons is compounded by dialect imitative of minstrelsy, the whole exhibiting an absence of firsthand encounter with the actual lives of struggling African Americans (Fischer, 72). And it must be admitted that Luks’s treatment of African Americans is uniformly racist. But deeply embedded racial categories informing the visual thinking of Ashcan—and other artists of the era—often prevented them from moving beyond stereotypes despite close-up encounters with individuals on city streets (Zurier, Snyder, and Mecklenburg, 115–116).ἀ e extent to which this remains true for Luks compels a more indepth examination of this issue in his work. A Serious Accident (Truth, June 30, 1894, 14; fig. 2-4) presents a representative drawing yet also exhibits how Luks drew on a wide variety of precedents, especially from elements of “high art,” a borrowing that marks his work as distinct from average cartoon fare while also giving evidence of broader artistic aspirations. Luks’s composition and setting parallel the well-known picture Bargaining for a Horse (1835, New York Historical Society) by American genre painter William Sydney Mount (1807–1868), and the fact that both images treat the theme of economic relationships between men and their animals reinforces this parallel. Luks depicts Deacon Ketchum as a black stable hand standing beside a fence and gesturing to Colonel Dixie, a rotund white man standing opposite. In the background, a blacksmith’s shop, a third figure, and a horse are visible. Ketchum wears dark

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Fig. 2-4. A Serious Accident, Truth, June 30, 1894, 14.

slacks, a rumpled shirt, and squashed cap; sports a white beard; and holds his hands before him while bowing in addressing Colonel Dixie. His pose indicates deference, recognizable from the long tradition of depicting subservient blacks in American art (McElroy, xi–xxvii). As early as ca. 1710, Justus Englehardt Kühn depicted a black slave in an attitude of anxious waiting upon his master. Following the Revolution, artists like Samuel Jennings continued this tradition in his painting Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences (1792), where

An Illustrator Comes of Age black servants and slaves prostrate themselves before a white, blond-haired woman representing Liberty. In the nineteenth century, genre painters such as William Sydney Mount continued the tradition of depicting blacks in subservient roles in such pictures as Quilting Frolic (1813) and Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride (1830). Even when African Americans were depicted straightforwardly as, for example, in the work of ἀ omas Waterman Wood, they tended to be shown occupying servile roles. Colonel Dixie—himself a stereotype of the southern Kentucky colonel—sports a trimmed mustache and puffs a cigarette. His girth, self-confident stance, formal suit, wide-brimmed hat, and spat-covered shoes manifest his superior socioeconomic status. Drawing upon such sources, Luks nevertheless wanted to create cartoons that would find a market in a mass-circulation magazine, realizing the success of his drawings (and future assignments) depended on acceptance by the editor and the demands of the public. It is no accident, therefore, that despite any “high art” provenance, figures in A Serious Accident reproduce stereotypes common in illustrations of the period, reinforced by vaudevillelike poses, costumes, and character names. In 1883 Luks had toured in the blackface vaudeville act Buzzy and Anstock, honing his instincts for making audiences laugh and winning their approval through his antics, appearance, and “Negro dialect.” In his cartoon, Deacon Ketchum becomes a step-andfetch-it character whose comedy is enhanced by a ridiculous response to his wife’s accident indicated in the drawing’s caption. Ketchum reacts like the buffoonish preachers featured in Sammis and Latham trade cards or the Currier and Ives Darktown series. Colonel Dixie is a caricatured plantation aristocrat recognizable from melodrama and minstrelsy. While it is understandable why Luks appropriated such figures, their appearance in his work is troubling. ἀ e largest group of African American cartoons depicts blacks parodying (white) society. ἀ ese portray couples at dress balls, men in scissortail jackets and white ties, women in long gowns with elbow-length gloves, elegant except that their caricatured physiognomies mark them as aliens while their grotesque behavior underscores the impossibility of assimilating into refined society. Dialect-inflected speech underscores their inappropriateness. It is estimated that one in four cartoons of African Americans relied upon this genre, parodying blacks in an urban milieu of droll courtship rites, susceptible to violent behavior and quick resort to a razor to settle disputes (Fischer, 72). A Fracas at the Ball (Truth, April 28, 1894, 13; (fig. 2-5), depicting a prostrate black man stomped upon by his angry escort as the floor manager admonishes

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Fig. 2-5. A Fracas at the Ball, Truth, April 28, 1894, 13.

the woman, is typical of its type. A City Official (Truth, April 15, 1893, 11), Attempted Imposition Crushed (Truth, January 14, 1893, 4), and A Good Reason (Truth, November 25, 1893, 2) respectively repeat this same image with slight variation and different captions, indicating Luks was not adverse to recycling drawings when occasion demanded. What is notable about Luks’s rendition of this genre is the extent to which he relied upon antiabolitionist caricatures that ridiculed Reconstruction by raising the alarm of an emancipationist social order. Bromley and Company’s lithograph Miscegenation Ball (1864), and similar caricactures, such as All the Difference in the World, appearing on September 26, 1868, in Harper’s Weekly, depict elegantly attired blacks and whites waltzing together and role reversals like the ones in several of Luks’s

An Illustrator Comes of Age cartoons. Vaudeville also perpetuated such negative stereotyping, disseminating the convention further through such billboard posters as The Darkey Professors (1900), featuring nattily dressed black professionals prancing about in comic fashion (Boskin, 121–147). In Luks’s drawings, ungrammatical speech and bungled responses rehearse comic elements of his vaudeville act. Blackface minstrelsy also lies behind Our Songs and Those Who Sing Them, a twopage centerfold Luks drew for the March 12, 1892, Truth, where a tuxedo-clad African American quartet of two squat individuals and two lanky ones with thick lips, bulging eyes, and kinky hair croon to the audience. ἀ e disparity in height among the four mimics the physical difference between the short, rotund Luks and his lanky brother Will as Buzzy and Anstock. Another Luks drawing, The Long and Short of It (Truth, May 26, 1894, 15), contains dialogue that could come directly from the stage: Mr. Wals ingh am: Yah, yah! What laigs! Mr. Sho r t y Co o n: Mah laigs teches de groun’. Whut moah does youh’s do, niggah? Although complicit in the use of race stereotypes, Luks occasionally demonstrates knowledge of broader issues and their impact upon American culture, as in The Phrenologist Examines the Head of Claude Melnotte Buffum of Darktown (Truth, May 21, 1892, 8–9). In the first panel, the bearded, largebrained (white) phrenologist, places his palms against the back of Buffum’s head, divining that his patient is not fond of waking early. In panel two, the practitioner moves his hands to the top of Buffum’s skull and notes Claude’s love of pig’s feet. In panels three and four, the doctor diagnoses Buffum’s love of chicken and watermelon. In the final panel, the phrenologist holds his hands on the back of Buffum’s skull, grins broadly, and exclaims, “You love a yaller girl!” Buffum leaps from his chair and gasps “Wow! Wow! Wow!” Whatever else it may be, Luks’s cartoon also references the debate swirling around phrenology and discriminatory laws based on the supposed inferiority of African Americans. Devised between 1798 and 1805 by Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828), a German physician, phrenology pioneered the theory that moral and intellectual faculties were innate, localized in definite regions of the brain responsible for specific mental faculties. One could diagnose mental and moral characteristics by analyzing bumps and cranial features on an individual’s scalp reflecting the predominance of particular faculties located in that dominant area.3 To

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An Illustrator Comes of Age bolster such theories, Gall produced elaborate brain maps detailing the size, shape, and location of each of twenty-seven brain organs, his theories finding important American followers in the brothers Lorenzo Fowler (1811–1896) and Orson Fowler (1809–1887),who together established a publishing house to spread Gall’s ideas and in the process attracted numerous American adherents, including noted theologian and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher. By the 1880s mainstream physicians, psychiatrists, and psychologists largely discredited phrenology, although it continued to find adherents among race theorists who claimed that baser passions evidenced in cranial shape dominated the physiognomies of African Americans, demonstrating their moral, intellectual, and social inferiority to whites. Given such beliefs, it is noteworthy that Luks depicts Buffum with an unusually oval-shaped cranium while the professor’s is high-peaked, indicating Luks’s familiarity with the brain maps of phrenology. Buffum’s cranial dominances correspond to regions reflecting appetite, destructiveness, combativeness, and love of life, while the professor’s correspond to areas reflecting concentration and conscientiousness. Yet Luks was no phrenologist, and despite its racist overtones, this particular cartoon satirizes phrenological theories in particular and folk medicine in general, a notion supported by two other Luks cartoons, Our Medical Restaurant (Truth, May 26, 1894, back cover) and How to Cure a Cold (Truth, March 24, 1894, 6–7). While some of Luks’s drawings rehash magazine cartoon stereotypes by depicting blacks as kinky-haired jungle inhabitants, The Topic of Today (Truth, February 25, 1893, 11;(fig. 2-6), is more in keeping with Ashcan interests. ἀ e drawing presents two somber street children. Luks accurately records the boy’s uncombed hair, undersized hat, bulky jacket buttoned up against the winter chill, and rolled cigarette dangling from his lip, and the flower in the girl’s hat, her one attempt at ornament. ἀ ey hold a large map as the boy scowls. ἀ e ensuing dialogue clarifies that Tommy’s foul mood results from a policeman’s assumption he is stupid. For having asked the cop why the Sandwich Islands are so named, and receiving the reply, “’cause they’re full of niggers, and niggers is sons of Ham,” Tommy understands that the policeman thinks him dull enough to believe this naive response. ἀ e “joke” turns on the words “sandwich” and “ham” and the implied biblical allusion to the cursed Ham, whose descendents, although traceable in a direct line to Noah, were identified with the Hittites and Canaanites, original inhabitants of Palestine destined for expulsion by the Hebrews. White supremacists and religious fundamentalists

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-6. The Topic of Today, Truth, February 25, 1893, 11.

believed Noah’s three sons were progenitors of all humanity: Shem of the Hebrews, Assyrians, and Arabians; Japheth of the Caucasians; and the youngest Ham of black-skinned Africans, Palestinians, and Asians, providing a religiously sanctioned justification for their subjugation and assumed inferiority. ἀi s fundamentalist underpinning gives the cartoon its impact by underscoring the equation between the word “ham” and the supposed origin of blacks. Luks was not religious, and several of his drawings satirize religion. Yet it is a measure of his astuteness as an artist creating drawings for a mass-market audience that he discerned this fundamentalist strain in American popular culture and exploited it for purposes of selling his comic drawing.

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An Illustrator Comes of Age ἀ e ethnicity of the children is undetermined. However, their workingclass environment, dress, and speech indicate they may be Irish, a type Luks would make famous in Hogan’s Alley. Luks produced sixteen Irish-themed drawings for Truth revolving around the following categories: putting on airs (five), pugilism (five), labor (four), and money-making schemes (two), themes also correlating with prevalent Irish American stereotypes appearing in illustrated magazines. Visual depictions of the Irish in America were well established. As Paddy or Bridget, they were ignorant and slothful, prone to drinking and emotional outbursts; matronly cooks were disorderly and unpredictable while men possessed strong jaws and baboonlike features (Appel, “Shanties to Lace Curtains”; Curtis). Dating from before the Civil War, such depictions evolved gradually, adapted from British stereotypes by John Tenniel in Punch and perpetuated further in ἀ omas Nast’s satires, where they are described by Perry Curtis as representing “a cross between a professional boxer and an orangutan” (Fischer, 74). Luks never quite stooped to the level of Nast or Tenniel, nor did he exemplify the Irish as rustic peasants with pigs grazing in the dining room as did Outcault (Going by Precept [Puck, September 15, 1894]) or as poverty-ridden, shanty-dwelling morons à la Frederick Burr Opper (The King of A-Shantee [Puck, February 15, 1882]). Far more typical of Luks’s approach is that of The Prize-Fighting Craze (Truth, April 8, 1893, 5; fig. 2-7), depicting a middle-class kitchen where Bridget stands before a cast-iron stove laden with steaming pans. Her rolled-up sleeves attest to her hard-working, no-nonsense world. Yet on this occasion her employer doffs his jacket and dons boxing gloves while obliging Bridget to do the same. As she stands awkwardly holding up her gloved hands, her employer admonishes, “Mind you Bridget, the conditions of the fight are that if I win you stay two months longer as cook,” a speech indicating his intention to gain additional work from her. Although referencing the supposed Irish penchant for fighting, what Fischer has termed “Celtic belligerence,” Luks’s drawing is distinct from the usual genre of Irish domestics demanding salary increases; here it is the master acknowledging Bridget’s prized culinary skills and implicit abilities in managing a household budget, qualities making her a desirable employee. While wages of servants nearly equaled those for female industrial workers, American working-class women viewed servitude as demeaning and shunned such employment, while large numbers of Irish girls viewed domestic work as a temporary apprenticeship for marriage (Appel, “Shanties to Lace Curtains,” 365–367). Turnover remained high, as women left domestic service when other

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-7. The Prize-Fighting Craze, Truth, April 28, 1893, 5.

opportunities arose. High turnover and labor scarcity meant Irish domestics occasionally felt emboldened to demonstrate their independence by quitting. And in fact Luks did reference demands made by domestic workers, a common canard in many Irish cartoons of the period, in Adapted to Other Professions (Truth, May 14, 1892, back cover), where in six sketches they complain to employees. Two feature Irish domestics. A chambermaid confronting her startled mistress demands that her dusting specialty be noted in the Sunday papers, while another justifies her neglect in doing laundry because

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An Illustrator Comes of Age of constant attention from various suitors. Yet for all its stereotypes, The PrizeFighting Craze and related drawings present Irish domestics as active agents, valued employees, and savvy about their ability to exact the best possible bargain from their employers. ἀi s more benign presentation reflects the general shift in American graphic humor of the 1890s. As the status of the Irish in America began to rise, images turned away from portraying them as incipient terrorists, a motif originating in popular British illustrated newspapers and magazines and the source for many American Irish stereotypes, toward ones where the greatest obstacle they present is a penchant for fighting, drinking, and exacting demands upon employers (Appel, “Shanties to Lace Curtains,” 371–372). Yet, as with depictions of African Americans, the notion of the Irish aspiring to the middle class unsettled deeply ingrained assumptions about their status. Such ambivalence is reflected in What He Craved (Truth, May 19, 1894, 10), depicting a bewhiskered Irishman reclining in a barber’s chair while a fastidious attendant plies his trade. Asked if he would like a little hair oil, a shampoo, or his whiskers dyed, O’Hoggarty impatiently responds, “Oi want nawthin’ but soilence, sor an’ dom little av thot!” ἀ e viewer is left to decipher this encounter: How to explain the Irishman’s impatience? What led to his having time and money to expend on this lavish treatment? Is the exchange funny at the Irishman’s expense or the barber’s? Luks’s drawing finds a parallel in an earlier, undated Currier and Ives cartoon, The Man That Gave Barnum His “Turn,” featuring an Irishman’s face in a ragged, unkempt “before” image and an “after” scene, where he is elegantly handsome. Behind this lies an oft-told story of how impresario showman Barnum, not wanting to wait at a barbershop, offered to pay for whatever treatment the Irish patron ahead of him was about to undergo provided he let Barnum go first, whereupon the Irishman ordered a bath, shave, shampoo, haircut, hair dye, and hair curling, reasons explaining the remarkable change in his “before” and “after” portraits.4 While the Barnum story betrays a popular belief in the Irish as cleaver schemers, both the Luks and the Currier and Ives cartoons hint that once assimilated, the Irish could rise and “pass” in American society. Whereas in 1881Puck characterized them as discontented, idle braggarts, by 1887editorials lauded Irishmen as “energetic,” much preferred to recent, “inferior” Bohemian and Russian immigrants (Appel, “Shanties to Lace Curtains,” 369, 371). Luks’s cartoon A Tammany Turndown (Truth, February 3, 1894, 11)takes this assimilation process a generation further. As three middle-class Irish women decked

An Illustrator Comes of Age out in Victorian finery gossip together on a street corner, one says to her compatriots, “I tell you wot girls, since Maggie Mooney’s fadder got elected to der legislatcher she dresses so I hardly knew her. We jest passed. I hardly knew her and she didn’t know me at all!” If domestics worked long hours, conditions for Irish male laborers were worse, compounded by the depression of 1893, when unemployment rose to 8.1 percent and remained at double-digit levels, averaging 12.3percent in 1894, 11.1percent in 1895,12 percent in 1896, 12.4 percent in 1897, and 11.6percent in 1898.5 ἀ e severity of the depression threw many Americans out of work and made immigrant Irish laborers a convenient target. Luks probably shared the perception that unchecked immigration lowered wages, a grave concern during the 1890s. American unease over Irish immigration can be ascertained by reviewing statistics from Boston. In 1840 approximately 4,000 Irish arrived in the city, yet seven years later over 1,000 landed in a single day; by 1850 they numbered 35,000 in a total population of 136,000, and between 1850 and 1855 their numbers increased 200 percent verses a growth of only 5 percent for the non-Irish population, leading Lyman Beecher to lament, “Our lower people hate the Irish because they keep the wages low, are good for a fight, and they despise them for their ignorance, poverty, and superstition” (Dezell, 54). Such comments illuminate why Luks devoted several cartoons to the Irish issue, employing stereotypes of physiognomy and brogue dialogue long prevalent in cartoon satire. Yet occasionally such cartoons hint at a more sympathetic view, perhaps unintentionally acknowledging the fact that the Irish were often the first thrown out of work or the victims of dire circumstances. A dominant and reoccurring image in Puck’s Irish cartoons was the Irish’s penchant toward profligacy aided by a weakness for drink and susceptibility to squandering hard-earned cash after dubious causes, including Irish home rule and the demands of grasping clerics, a particularly favorite object of ridicule from the pen of Frederick Burr Opper (Fischer, 88, 92–93). Yet Luks notably refrained from such typecasting. To be sure, his out-of-luck Irishmen are frequently dimwitted, but their desperation is real. Such is the case with His Soliloquy (Truth, June 23, 1894, 11), where a distraught man stands before a sign advertising life insurance, muttering, “Begorra, times are so hard, if Oi had me loife insured Oi’d take it.” In No Time to Be Lost (Truth, December 16, 1893, 11)a broad-jawed, curly haired Mr. O’Toole, sporting a frumpy frock coat and derby hat, leans over a teller’s window at the “Mutual Consent Life Insurance Company,” waving his arms

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An Illustrator Comes of Age animatedly at the clerk, arguing, “Oi want an insurance policy on me woife, and be a little quick about it, too; the doctor says she might doy at any toime.” Such images also hint at another significant fear: unchecked immigration would wreak social havoc, undermining the sustaining national ethos of the so-called Protestant work ethic. An anonymous 1876 cartoon expressed this very anxiety. Titled The Great Fear of the Period, That Uncle Sam May Be Swallowed by Foreigners; The Problem Solved, the image depicts an Irishman and a Chinese holding between them the helpless figure of Uncle Sam, whom they prepare to swallow. ἀ ey continue eating until Uncle Sam is consumed and the Chinaman proceeds to swallow the Irishman, a visual illustration of the notion that Irish immigration may be bad, but being overwhelmed by the Chinese would be worse. Cartoons about Chinese immigration are rare in Puck or Judge (Fischer, 70), and Luks addressed the issue in but a single image, The Shame of America—John Chinaman as the Husband of Our Girls (Truth, June 4, 1892, 5). But that drawing is not so much about Chinese immigration per se as about interracial marriage. Yet if one might find a note of sympathy expressed for the plight of out-of-work Irish laborers in His Soliloquy and No Time to Be Lost, many of Luks’s cartoons of the Irish remain problematic. Judgment Deferred (Truth, May 20, 1893, 13) depicts Mike, a hod-carrying Irishman, clumsily falling from a roof as his partner, Pat, calls out to see if Mike has been hurt. “Wait a Second!” Mike yells while falling earthward. Mike’s quasi-simian facial appearance and fatal clumsiness pander to stereotypes of Irish workers as blundering and inept, the sentiment conveyed by another Luks drawing accompanying a humorous poem titled King of the May (Truth, May 27, 1893, 5), celebrating a boisterous truck man who delights in smashing objects consigned to his care while fighting off anyone who curbs his destructive zeal. An Entirely New and Original Irish Song (Truth, August 15, 1893, 11)sarcastically extols McCarthy’s ball, where the Irish guests pointedly turn the other cheek and avoid fighting. ἀ e sketch includes scenes of dancing revelers and a corpulent Irish maiden. Apart from perpetuating stereotypes, what makes such images problematic is the great gulf separating them from the essentially optimistic depictions by Luks in both his Hogan’s Alley cartoons of 1896–1897 and in such paintings as The Spielers (1905), where a young red-haired Irish girl happily dances with a German girl in the streets of the Lower East Side to the music of a hurdy-gurdy. The Spielers encapsulates everything positive Luks envisioned about the tenements. Essentially egalitarian, he viewed slum life as “precisely what it is ‘up-town,’ save that ‘up-town’ it has the advantage

An Illustrator Comes of Age of a protecting mantle of prosperity. . . . Humanity is essentially the same. ἀ e same types will be found in every walk of life, only when they are desperately poor they will more explicitly and unmistakably demonstrate their true selves.”6 ἀi s attitude enabled him to see great potential in tenement children. “To paint a child is to approach the historical! I try to pick out children who give signs of meaning something to the community in the future . . . this one may be a pugilist and that one an idealist. It doesn’t matter. Each will be worthwhile, a leader, a voice. ἀi s little girl may be a Madonna and that a celebrated courtesan. It is not possible to say in what direction the energies of a child will drive it.”7 And here may lie an important distinction between Luks’s cartoons and paintings: in his latter art, Luks evidenced a decided preference for children or the elderly, individuals for whom it is relatively easy to engender empathy. Glossing over real hardships of poverty and childhood labor, Luks saw tenement children as free to display an undisciplined spontaneity, posing no economic, cultural, or social threat to the world of adults. Cartoon images, on the other hand, because they might deal with these very adult concerns and phobias, generally presented immigrants as members of an identifiable ethnic group against whom one had formulated preconceived ideas and thus rendered such groups susceptible to distortion and caricature, hallmarks central to cartoon art. ἀ e most blatant stereotypes were those portraying Irish drinking and fighting. Yet as immigrating eastern and southern Europeans displaced the Irish in terms of sheer numbers, perceptions of the Irish in cartoon literature grew more benign, even as the cartoons became more hostile to newer arrivals (Appel, “Shanties to Lace Curtains”). ἀ ough still caricatured, the Irish were more likely to be perceived as happy-go-lucky and harmless, exactly the sort of feeling one gathers from Luks’s cartoon Mr. Everdhry McNulty Endeavors to Swear Off with the Aid of a Dime Savings Bank (Truth, April 23, 1892, 7; fig. 2-8). In a series of scenes, McNulty grows more frantic daily, first inserting ten cents into a cylinder-shaped bank, subsequently straining with deliriumlike anguish while depositing a coin, finally laughing gleefully while smashing open the bank to retrieve his money and, given his punning name, presumably to spend it on drink. ἀ e inverted moral demonstrates his irresolute nature. McNulty’s leprechaun features underscore this point and reinforce the comedy. Yet despite the stereotype, McNulty is essentially a benign figure, like the children in The Spielers, posing no threat or harm to anyone, perhaps, but himself. A similar attitude prevails in Even (Truth, July 7, 1894, 10), where Pat

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An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-8. Mr. Everdhry McNulty Endeavors to Swear Off with the Aid of a Dime Savings Bank, Truth, April 23, 1892, 7.

O’Rourke confronts his nemesis, Raferty O’Brien, by raising his fists while demanding to know if O’Brien called him a liar. When O’Brien admits he did and raises his fists to fight, the frightened O’Rourke quickly backs down, exclaiming, “Oi don’t believe ye!” As one who loved to boast about specious pugilistic exploits as “Chicago Whitey,” “Socko Sam,” and “Mike the Morgue,” Luks might be expected to demonstrate an interest in caricaturing the famed Irish American boxer John L. Sullivan in his graphic art, and in Mr. Sullivan’s Scrap-Book (Truth, June 11,1892, 10) he did just that. ἀ e cartoon wryly depicts the burly, broadjawed boxer tricked out in plaid slacks, puffing a cigar, and dictating to his secretary as the wizened man fearfully records Sullivan’s thoughts. In scene two, Sullivan leaps from his chair, slamming his fist on the table in describing his bout against Charles Mitchell. Panel three has him looming over six kowtowing editors, while in panel four the formally dressed pugilist presents his volume “to the world,” represented by a boy and his pet dog. ἀ e final scene depicts Sullivan standing over an editor’s desk, placing his heavy right hand atop the latter’s head, compelling him to read the entire volume. Gaining fame and riches through boxing, John L. Sullivan was a hero for many Irish Americans.8 Yet the sudden rise of Irish American pugilists as opposed to American Protestant boxers bred a deeper societal angst: that Irish Americans, whether native-born or recent immigrants, would spawn violence eventually overpowering more enfeebled American Protestant males. Unlike Ivy League athletes competing in intercollegiate sports on (largely Anglo-Saxon) playing fields, successful Irish boxers seemed bound by no such rules of gentlemanly conduct. Protestant businessmen responded to this perceived threat to their

An Illustrator Comes of Age status by supporting a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) that promoted athletic ability along with moral training under a regimen known as “Muscular Christianity” (Ladd and Mathisen, 52–53).Satire marketed to these same middle-class businessmen in the form of journal cartoons like Mr. Sullivan’s Scrap-Book, mocking the Irishman’s uncouth behavior, served a similar purpose achieving a psychological, if pyrrhic, victory over the Irish and what they supposedly represented. Yet the visual stereotype of the Irish pugilist had become so ingrained in American popular culture as to become a veritable icon for scrappy, uncompromising feistiness. On pages eight and nine in the same issue of Truth featuring Mr. Sullivan’s Scrap-Book, Luks drew the looming figure of a bare-chested boxer with arms crossed, while a crowd of pygmysize men duke it out about his ankles. Captioned The John L. Sullivan of His Party, the cartoon actually substitutes for the face of John L. Sullivan that of Grover Cleveland, the first Democrat elected president (1885–1889) after the Civil War and renominated in the presidential campaign of 1892. Luks’s cartoon appeared at the outset of the campaign, but Cleveland already enjoyed a hardscrabble reputation as someone who brooked no favorites, demonstrating a steely determination during his first term by vetoing farm relief and war pension claims, and forcing railroads to return 81 million acres in federal lands. He would go on to win a second time, the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms. Possessed of such fighting spirit, Cleveland became a natural subject for Luks to equate with the scrappy John L. Sullivan. In comparison with African Americans and the Irish, German Americans were infrequent targets for satire, and as Keppler himself was of German ancestry, it is perhaps no surprise that Puck rarely lampooned them. Yet Jews came in for frequent ridicule in Puck, Judge, and Life, the subject of unremitting caricature featuring hooked noses, bastardized Yiddish accents, and unabashedly rapacious business ethics (Appel, “Jews in American Caricature,” 103–118).ἀi s last trait, a gross distortion of the dominant ethos of the Protestant work ethic, marked them as unassimilated aliens (Fischer, 90, 94–100). Luks occasionally perpetuated this image of Jews, as he did in A Good Idea (Truth, April 14, 1894, 15; fig. 2-9), where grocer Isaac Cohn stands within his store rubbing his hands together while instructing a lad standing by the counter next to a basket of stale matzoth to fasten handles onto the bread and sell it for fans during the coming hot weather. ἀ e dress and physical attributes of Cohn parallel examples drawn by Joseph Keppler in They Are a People (Puck, July 29, 1891),where a Jewish businessman gloats in his newly found fortune

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An Illustrator Comes of Age after arriving in America, conventions that Keppler, in turn, borrowed from stereotypes long prevalent in American culture and self-deprecatingly perpetuated in Yiddish theater and vaudeville (Zurier, Snyder, and Mecklenburg, 25, 117). And the stereotype proved intractable enough to be repeated in dozens of Puck cartoons by artists as diverse as Joseph Keppler Jr., Eugene Zimmerman, Frank Beard, F. M. Howarth, and F. M. Hutchins. Yet what is distinct about Luks’s cartoons is the extent to which the vast majority of these images are far more benign than dominant caricatures of the era, more often than not indistinguishable from satires directed at generic Germans. Of the fifteen drawings Luks created in this genre, only three can be classified definitively as Jewish cartoon satire. Of the reminder, three may be classified as more generically German satire than Jewish satire, and fully nine may be interpreted either way, since names and physiognomies of the characters might imply, though not definitively prove to be, Jewish subjects. Examples of generic German humor include An Important Commercial Union (Truth, April 2, 1892, 16), where a row of identical-looking mustached men state, “dem seven Sunderlad sisters vas jokin’ ven of marrying us six little Jacobs’ dey vas spoken.” Ambiguous—that is, either German or Jewish—satire occurs in Bad Business (Truth, December 30, 1893, 8), where two men grab on to a capsized boat as one scolds the other, saying, “Vhy didn’t you pay oud dat shet vehn I tod you?” To which his companion replies, “I don’t like de idea uff paying oud and gedding noddings for id!” Of German ancestry and reared in the Pennsylvania “Dutch” country, Luks grew up in an area where German-accented English was common, and this may have influenced his cartoons. German Americans were fairly prosperous and assimilated.9 But during the time Luks drew his images, a new influx of Yiddish-speaking immigrants began to alter the German-speaking wards of New York City’s “Kleindeutschland.” Hungarian Jews settled above Houston Street along Avenues A and B and in the East River neighborhoods. Galicians settled to the south between Houston and Broome streets. Rumanians settled in the west around Allen Street (a neighborhood Luks would paint in 1905). Russians, Poles, and Lithuanians settled between Rand and Monroe (Rischin, 76). Such a huge and diverse influx into predominately German-speaking Kleindeutschland provides an insight into why it sometimes proved convenient to leave the exact ethnic identity of cartoon subjects ambiguous. When Luks did illustrate Jews, he seemed particularly inclined to represent them as tailors, in fact a profession they occupied in large numbers. Of

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-9. A Good Idea, Truth, April 14, 1894, 15.

395,823 skilled Jewish workers in New York City between 1899 and 1910, fully 168,451 identified themselves as tailors or seamstresses (Kessner, 33). By 1890, 125New York Jewish businesses sold “dry and fancy goods,” comprising clothing, women’s apparel, and linens, ranking this the top Jewish industry (Rischin, 52). A generation earlier most clothing was either homemade or custom sewn. ἀi s sudden rise of the Jewish garment industry coupled with the proliferation of department stores unsettled many native-born Americans accustomed to

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An Illustrator Comes of Age more leisurely, personal ways of doing business, and unlike Keppler’s prosperous merchant, Luks’s tailors scheme to make a buck. ἀ ough partaking of standard stereotypes common in this particular cartoon genre (Fischer, 94), these cartoons also provide important evidence of how changes in the clothing retail business affected popular thought. ἀ e first appearance of this formula in Luks’s cartoons is In Ambush (Puck, July 29, 1891,367), the same edition that printed Keppler’s They Are a People, confirming Luks’s knowledge and probable borrowing from Keppler. In Ambush presents a customer examining an overcoat displayed outside Cohn’s One-Price Clothier. Receiving a signal from within, young Sammy Cohn pops out from under the overcoat and snags the would-be customer, gleefully shouting, “Only t’ree fifty mister; step inside.” ἀ e cartoon proved popular enough for a reprisal in The Customer Catcher (Truth, November 26, 1893, 7); only here the Jewish merchant actively snares the customer with a rake, reassuring the startled man of the coat’s “eggzellent fidt.” Luks’s merchant resembles the bewhiskered, hook-nosed figure of Keppler’s drawing, with an added layer of prejudice absent from the latter. He recycles this stereotype in Business-Like (Truth, May 21, 1892, 17), where a father instructs his son to put a suit out in the rain to shrink it, then charge a customer three extra dollars for alterations. Similarly, in A Father’s Advice (Truth, November 11,1893, 10), a tailor explains proudly to his son how money overcharged a customer for a suit was split equally with his business partner. “Ven you treat odder peoples mit honesty, yet get along putty gevick,” the father advises. What made such cartoons so striking for readers of Puck, Truth, and similar illustrated magazines was how the greed and shady business ethics of the protagonists seemed to strike at the heart of the dominant cultural ethos, the Protestant work ethic. Yet by the 1880s it was not simply a question of rapacious individuals acting on their own to turn an illicit profit; the growth of conglomerates and monopolies—the Trusts—seemed to pervert the very roots of a republic founded upon the premise of honest labor by free citizens, a threat that Joseph Keppler forcefully excoriated in his cartoon The Bosses of the Senate appearing on January 23, 1889, in Puck. In the early 1890s several artists followed the pioneering lead of Franklin Morris, adopting the strategy of deftly combining text and graphics to address their comments about the new urban, corporate business culture at the level of the individual person, recording the evolution of a person’s face or persona over the course of a series of drawings. Examples include Jerome H. Smith’s A Study of Facial Expression at the “Phone” (Judge,

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-10. Monday–Saturday, Truth, February 27, 1892, back cover.

August 20, 1892, 120) and Louis Dalrymple’s The Transformation of a Paying Teller (Puck, November 26, 1890, 213), where the bank employee morphs from a humble clerk into a raging bureaucrat (Gordon, 20–21). Luks, too, followed this approach in such cartoons as Monday–Saturday (Truth, February 27, 1892, back cover; fig. 2- 10), in which a six-frame cartoon depicts a businessman on different days of the week, a smile frozen upon his face. Except for slight

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An Illustrator Comes of Age variations in whether his jacket is buttoned or not, or a change of necktie, his appearance remains unaltered throughout the week, save for a gradually wilting flower prominently tucked into the boutonniere of his left lapel. On Saturday, the office man holds up a bundled shirt, freshly procured from a commercial laundry, a sign that next week will be exactly the same as the one before, and a symbol of his lost autonomy in a corporate culture demanding conformity and rote performance of standardized office functions. The Trials of a Vase Hunter (Truth, August 12, 1893, back cover) illustrates the difficulty a man has in purchasing that item because the five store clerks he approaches are trained to function only within the specific department to which they are assigned and so cannot assist him. Frustrated, the would-be customer eventually encounters the floor manager, who informs him the clerk in charge of vases has passed away that morning so he cannot purchase the item. A large number of cartoons Luks drew for Truth focus on the complex arena of gender relations, a topic drawing the attention of several artists concerned with satirizing emancipated young women (Fischer, 70). F. Luis Mora’s In a Twentieth-Century Club (Life, June 13, 1895), depicting liberated women as knicker-wearing, smoking-and-drinking, club-attending females watching a tutu-clad man perform upon stage, and Charles Dana Gibson’s At Mrs. Daubleigh Crome’s (Life, December 8, 1892), where a formally attired and primly posed couple stand about a studio salon as disheveled, bohemian types carry on, are typical of this genre.10 Whereas the former illuminates male fears of female domination resulting from the consequent breakdown of fixed and separate spheres for male and female activity, the latter takes to task the blurring of rigid codes of acceptable dress and decorum formerly circumscribing public and private behavior. ἀ ough not neglecting these issues, Luks’s drawings reject the implied opprobrium of Gibson’s cartoon, and often seem to welcome such changes. If there is a degree of traditionalism in his cartoons treating gender issues, it lies more within the realm of critiquing marriage expectations and meddlesome in-laws and a longing for a wholesome bride than in a wholesale censorship of liberated women. Such a critique is consistent with the circumstances surrounding his personal life. Losing his fiancé to his brother in 1902, Luks unwisely married on the fly, only to divorce his pregnant wife and abandon their child the following year. A second marriage, to Emma Louise Noble in 1904, ended in a messy divorce several years later. A third marriage to a much younger Cuban American woman, Mercedes Carbonell, resulted in a tempestuous relationship.

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-11.The Spendthrift, Truth, February 13, 1894, 8–9.

Two cartoons encapsulate Luks’s approach to gender relations, Mary Jane (Truth, May 6, 1893, 10) and The Spendthrift (Truth, January 13, 1894, 8–9; fig. 2-11).Mary Jane illustrates Roy L. McCardell’s poem lamenting changes his unassuming country sweetheart adopts upon acquiring worldly sophistication. First glimpsed sitting beneath an oak tree beside a rustic farmhouse with her beau, teenaged Mary Jane is next shown conversing with a nattily dressed college boarder, an encounter causing reflection and the subsequent demand to be called Mary instead of the prosaic Mary Jane. Her transformation from country lass to accomplished woman quickens once she is at college. Luks portrays her as a young belle, stylishly arrayed in balloon-sleeved bodice and feathered hat, acquiring the modern name of Mae to accompany her sophisticated new look. Underlying Mary Jane is the Victorian assumption that women’s special role was to sanctify the home, inculcating moral values in children (Rothman, 22). Yet as more college-educated and economically secure middle- and upper-middle-class women joined the ranks of women’s

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An Illustrator Comes of Age college alumnae, entering professions formerly held by men, they challenged assumptions about “women’s frailty” and “nervous constitution.” Designed to refute such notions, women’s colleges taught them to consider alternatives to marriage and family, even to the extent of pursuing sexual fulfillment as a legitimate pleasure in its own right (Rothman, 106–107). Educated women further altered traditional extended family networks by cultivating the notion of “compassionate marriage,” both partners perceived more as equals, with women expected to be bright, well-informed mates alongside their husbands (Schneider and Schneider, 42–44). Such changed expectations presented a dilemma to many American males as to what women really wanted. If Mary Jane expressed a longing for a wholesome country girl as a potential mate, Luks also fantasized about her opposite in the chromolithographic centerfold The Spendthrift, where a blond-haired, ruby-lipped ingénue, sumptuously attired in a crimson décolleté gown, rides upon the back of a gentleman whose body forms a carriage with a silver dollar wheel pulled along the road to perdition by a grimacing Satan. Such imagery harkens back to medieval depictions of Virtues and Vices, where Inconstancy figures as a wayward female losing her balance peddling a unicycle. But Luks probably had a more proximate source in mind: the emerging nightclub, once unavailable to, then shunned, and eventually frequented by middle-class New Yorkers, an established feature by the turn of the century. Originally patronized by actors, by the 1890s entertainment-drinking establishments proliferated as Broadway hotels experimented with rooftop beer gardens (Erenberg, 75). By 1911cabaret-style performances were widely available in Broadway restaurants, whose acts attained respectability suitable to allow women to attend (Erenberg, 76). In lieu of sedate Victorian home life, cabarets offered environments emphasizing passion, where both sexes could mingle freely, encouraging couples to touch as they danced to rhythms once associated with African American music (Erenberg, 80–81). Although the titillating imagery of Spendthrift could be viewed as a cautionary warning against immoderate living, Luks depicts his figures utterly enjoying themselves with no hint of regret, thus offering a subtext celebrating the demise of the old Victorian social order. He, in fact, seems to celebrate just such a guilt-free social order in Types of the Ball Season (Truth, February 4, 1893, back cover), portraying a cabaret ball where a young woman dancing with a masked man brandishes a champagne bottle while a tuxedoed gentleman follows close behind. A circle of figures-including a cancan dancer, a man chasing another woman, a chorine propositioning an older

An Illustrator Comes of Age man to dance, and a matron flirting with a younger male—surround the pair. At lower right Luks includes himself as a participant in the fun through the device of a dance card inscribed, “Admit George Luks.” Occasionally, Luks’s cartoons, unlike most of this genre, border on the risqué, sophisticated male humor to be grasped with a wink and a nod, as in A Harlem Fiction (Truth, April 8, 1893, back cover). Here, men call upon women at a dance hall, converse, dance, and share drinks, afterward returning home in the rain. ἀ e word “fiction” in the title indicates the improbable conclusion to this scenario, where the women, in fact, are prostitutes at a Harlem bordello and the men in question would normally have sexual intercourse with them. In Would Not Be Bluffed (Truth, March 4, 1893, 10), a businessman inquires, “Did you say Stiggins plays the piccolo? I don’t see how he can with that lip.” To which the other man, eyeing the passing young woman holding on to Stiggins’s arm, suggestively responds, “Oh that’s easy! He plays the instrument upside down.” In a more innocent vein, At the Musical (Truth, July 7, 1894, 12) depicts a young boy gazing at a beautiful woman in the audience. “What kind of instrument is that lady going to play on?” he naively inquires. On those occasions when Luks draws the “liberated women,” he does so with gentle humor rather than censure. The Miss from Miss (Truth, June 2, 1894, 2) has a young woman punching a masher, while a limerick beneath the drawing comments: Oh, there was a fresh masher from Miss, A New York girl’s hand asked to kiss, “Why cert,” she replied, The stepped up to his side, And extended her hand just like this. While the act of defending herself evidences newfound self-determination, No Photographer (Truth, March 11,1893, 11)presents a woman desirous of more initiative from her timid suitor. Meeting his sister’s beau on the vestibule, little Tommy inquires if he is a photographer. When the puzzled man replies he isn’t and prompts the child to respond why he thought so, the boy replies that his older sister complained her suitor would “require all winter for something to develop.” A particularly funny twist on the theme of courtship adds the topic of religion to this mix. A Clerical Error (Truth, July 1, 1893, 2) features a wan minister snuggling next to a demure woman in a pew, suggesting the

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An Illustrator Comes of Age wide-reaching impact of changing morality. An-Ghu’s Piety (Truth, April 28, 1894, 11)satirizes Christian missionaries by depicting a Chinese catechumen enraptured by a beautiful young missionary, only to quit the following week when an elderly male minister replaces her. Reflecting an awareness of the ways changing American recreational habits at seaside resorts provided opportunities for sexes to mingle freely, At Ocean Grove (Truth, September 3, 1891,7; fig. 2-12)and At the Pier (Truth, October 8, 1891,10) also are among Luks’s most artful cartoons and indicate he was influenced by the wood engravings of Winslow Homer appearing in Harper’s Illustrated. In At the Pier, a young woman lets her hair blow in the wind while sporting a bathing costume accentuating her stocking-covered legs and bare arms, urging her friend to enjoy the deliciously warm water. As her friend demurs, two men lounging nearby ogle them. At Ocean Grove depicts a resort a few miles from Long Branch, New Jersey, also made famous in Homer’s 1869 canvas of the same title. A related wood engraving by Homer and titled On the Bluff at Long Branch, at the Bathing Hour appeared in Harper’s Weekly on August 6, 1870. In Luks’s drawing, a woman holds her hat with both hands as a gusty breeze blows her skirts. Walking alongside, a man holds her furled umbrella. ἀ ey appear to have alighted from a small rowboat pulled ashore by a seaman clad in oilcloth. Other figures walk the beach. “My hat pin’s loose,” cries the young woman, to which her male friend replies, “You better be careful, it’s liable to arrest.” ἀ e wordplay—implying sticking someone and the act of imprisonment—suggests sexual undercurrents to their afternoon tryst and links the drawing to Homer’s wood engraving The Beach at Long Branch (Appleton’s Journal, August 21, 1869), with its theme of unrequited seaside summer romance, an occurrence so common that the contemporary periodical Round Table noted: “Many a heart has been lost in the surf here. . . . ἀ e surf and flirtation make the main business of life at the (Long) Branch, with a slight advantage in favor of the latter” (Cikovsky et al., 80). Like Homer, Luks evidences a determination to depict the realities of contemporary life, and the fact that his drawings also appeared in a popular journal for middle-class readers, as did Homer’s, further indicates his conscious appeal to that audience. ἀ e image of the long-bearded rube, modeled after the portrait likenesses of Kansas senator William Alfred Peffer and drawn by artists as varied as Frederick Burr Opper, Louis Dalrymple, C. J. Taylor, and Victor Gillam

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-12. At Ocean Grove, Truth, September 3, 1891, .7

on the pages of Puck and Judge throughout the early 1890s, became another well-recognized symbol, an icon for the wild-eyed, naive, and uncouth hick. Luks expropriated the image of the rube-Peffer, as did other artists, as a convenient symbol for commenting on the supposed superiority of urban versus rural living and for contrasting the up-to-date progressive city with the outmoded countryside, a stratagem holding wide appeal for city dwellers (the purchasers of most illustrated magazines), caught up as they were in the vortex of expanding urbanization, increasing ethnic diversity, and rapid technological change. Change was most evident in New York City, where by 1900 the foreign-born and their children comprised 76 percent of the population (Rischin, 9). ἀ e kaleidoscope of nationalities generated explosive growth, making New York the most populous city in the world after London and doubling in size between 1890 and 1915 (Webber, 7). In 1898 the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx joined to form Greater New York, while trolley lines, elevated trains, and, after 1904, subways pushed

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An Illustrator Comes of Age urbanization beyond 125th Street (Zurier, 7). Expansion occurred as technological advances such as electric lights, the telephone, and indoor plumbing revolutionized urban living. Luks’s version of the rube-Peffer motif is evident in such cartoons as A Fatal Blow (Truth, May 26, 1894, 4), where a rural traveler lodging in a hotel equipped with gas lighting treats the burning flame like a candle, blowing out the jet instead of turning it off, and again in Likely (Truth, October 14, 1893, 10), where Languishing Lawrence, wearing layers of clothing and toting a backpack, encounters Dusty David on the stoop of a country store. When David inquires where his friend is going, Lawrence, ignorant of publishing industry operations, replies, “Well, I writ an article for Harper’s some days ago an’ I’m goin’ to New York to see when it gits published.” For this genre of cartoons, Luks also relied upon models disseminated by Currier and Ives, particularly their Darktown series, itself a repetition of black stereotypes noted earlier. Typical of Luks’s effort is The Fourth of July at Podunkville (Truth, July 8, 1893, back cover), where in five panels he unfolds the tale of Tommy and Harry, who ignite firecrackers inside a hut on the town common, setting it ablaze. A volunteer brigade rush to their firehouse, don protective gear, and lug hoses to the site, only to find a smoldering ruin. ἀ eir ineptness contrasts with the efficiency and professionalism of urban firefighters lionized by Currier and Ives and parallels the scorn for blacks typified in prints produced by this same firm such as Darktown Fire Brigade—To the Rescue! (1884). Traveling to the big city, Luks’s rube-Peffer, recognizable by his long hair, chin whiskers, overcoat, brimmed hat, and carpetbag, encounters an unfamiliar world. In the club car of a train, he reacts with surprise when the conductor announces the stop as Iona Island, remarking, “I own one er the finest farms in Ulster County, but I don’t go ’round braggin’ about it ter folk that ain’t no kin ter me.” In Name Changed (Truth, June 24, 1893, 5), the rube peers out a train window, inquiring if the town isn’t Squedunk. “No, its Dunklet-bythe-Sea,” responds the conductor. “ἀ ey’ve changed the name.” Once arrived, he miscomprehends what he sees. In At the World’s Fair (Truth, October 28, 1893, 11),a saloon sign advertises a dinner at the bargain price of twenty-five cents, underscoring the meal’s cheapness with the word “Look!” Farmer Jones muses, “Ef meals is 25 cents a look, darn ef it ain’t was’ n I thought fur!” While F. M. Hutchens drew the rube-Peffer as an incompetent (Peffer’s Populistic Boom [Puck, October 10, 1894, front cover]) and Frederick Burr Opper presented him as a long-bearded and long-winded orator (Puck’s Valentine for

An Illustrator Comes of Age 1894 [Puck, February 4, 1894]), Luks varied the formula, combining it with another standard canard popular in period cartoons, the affected dandy, as when the newly arrived rube notices a dandy walking affectedly, chest pushed forward, derrière shoved backward (Truth, April 30, 1892, 10). ἀ e rube swings his furled umbrella, whacking the man’s behind. “ἀ ere goes another o’ them crooken- backed critters,” he remarks. “I’ll straighten him.” ἀ e year 1893 marked the opening of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, perhaps the only American city that could lay claim to rival New York in ambition. Puck covered the fair extensively, even producing a special edition, The World’s Fair Puck, and erecting its own pavilion at the site designed by Stanford White. For his part, Luks tied the spectacle of the World’s Fair to the issue of regional New York pride, ridiculing the fair’s exhibits in Truth Suggests a Few Attractions of the World’s Fair (Truth, May 28, 1892, 10–11)and the crass manners of its citizens in Not Quite Barbarians (Truth, June 23, 1894, 10). But perhaps more important, his cartoon In 1893(Truth, February 11,1893, 12) pointed out the high urban crime rate. An armor-clad Chicago couple prepares to step outside their Victorian drawing room. “Have you fixed the burglar alarm?” the husband inquires. “Are the policemen on guard round the house? Is everything all right? Well, then, we may safely go round to the butcher’s and get a pound of beefsteak.” In poking fun at Chicagoans crass manners, urban dangers, and hucksterism, Luks engaged in hometown boosterism, confirming New York’s preeminence over upstart Chicago while deflecting attention to crime in other metropolitan areas. Petty crime or pranksterism perpetrated by urban tenement kids forms another genre Luks enjoyed creating for the pages of Truth. ἀ ough following the examples established by Michael Angelo Woolf and Richard Felton Outcault, on occasion Luks departed significantly from the generally benign images these two illustrators created. In Fun (Truth, April 22, 1893, 6), Luks draws six small sketches where a mean-spirited boy and girl come upon a dead cat and tie a firecracker to its tail. But after spying an approaching bulldog, the children conspire to light the firecracker while goading the dog into wrestling them for the animal’s carcass, only to let go and flee before the firecracker explodes in the bulldog’s face. Pranks continue in A Significant Removal (Truth, August 5, 1893, 3), when two gamins steal the sign “strippers wanted” from a tobacco factory and place it over a burlesque theater stage door. And in Spending an Hour Over It (Truth, September 16, 1893, 6), little Johnnie lies when questioned by his teacher if he studied his lesson. “I spent an hour over it

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An Illustrator Comes of Age last night, ma’am,” he states. ἀ e second panel shows him seated atop his geography books reading the saga of Bloody Bill. Such actions pave the way for the rambunctious, disruptive behavior of the Hogan’s Alley gang Luks would draw in 1896 and 1897 for the World, including scenes of robbing an ice cart, holding up Santa Claus at gun point, and causing mayhem and havoc at a public aquarium. While presented in humorous fashion, such cartoons accurately reflect a darker side of tenement life generally avoided by most cartoonists, an important example being A Big Snap (Truth, November 18, 1893, 4; fig. 2-13). On an alley corner before a coal bin abutting a decrepit brick tenement, two derelicts scheme to obtain welfare. “If we kin get de collery, de city ’ill put us in a hospital an’ gib us anythink we wants ter eat,” says one tramp, while two kids stare and laugh and a scrawny dog sniffs about the gutter. Hardly funny, cholera claimed hundreds of tenement dwellers’ lives, constituting a leading cause behind reformers’ efforts to clean up the slums (Riis, chapter 4). An odd juxtaposition results from this accurate yet cavalier depiction of slums and of a killer disease, indicating Luks’s lack of sustained experience with the harsh realities of tenement life. Although roaming the inner city in search of material, he essentially did so as an outsider. A Big Snap indicates how humor functions as a distancing mechanism to ward off more sustained exposure, and in that regard Luks’s cartoon art presages the realistic portraits and sketches of desperate Lower East Side character types he would create in the following decades, images like The Old Duchess (1905) and The Old Rosary Woman of Catherine Street, New York City (1915). Luks occasionally drew middle-class children acting badly, a twist on the stereotypical cartoon canards of the period. Designed as a six-panel chromolithograph, The Up To Date American Child (Truth, June 2, 1894, back cover) depicts a matronly woman offering two girls twenty-five cents to look after baby Willie in his wicker stroller. As soon as she departs, the two spar over which direction to push the buggy, causing it to tip over and send the infant flying. ἀ e angry child proceeds to fight with the girls, causing them to run off while he mutters, “You can’t rely on servants at all,” a statement linking the drawing with cartoons satirizing uppity (usually Irish female) domestics. Framed in elegant rococo scrolls, Children Nowadays (Truth, March 8, 1893, back cover) portrays spoiled brats mimicking the rude manners of wealthy adults, a take-off on the society fop theme common in cartoon fare. A distraught girl demands a brandy cocktail from her butler; an infant in his crib

An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-13. A Big Snap, Truth, November 18, 1893, 4.

asks the maid to hurry with his nourishment; and at an afternoon reception adult loves, doubts, and jealousies play out among the assembled children. Another standard “filler fare” cartoon drawn by countless artists depicted con men and their schemes. ἀi s genre is of a rather predictable nature. But at least on one occasion Luks offered a novel approach. The Artful Organ Grinder and How He Adapts His Tunes to His Patrons (Truth, January 7, 1893, back cover) is particularly interesting for a scene of ashcan kids dancing to the music

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An Illustrator Comes of Age of a hurdy-gurdy, the subject of The Spielers, one of Luks’s most famous paintings. ἀ e panels unfold sequentially upon the page, from upper left to lower right, as the cunning, ruddy-nosed organ grinder continually changes tunes to respectively coax money from a grieving widow, an African American, a chorus girl, a dandy walking terriers, and a crowd of street kids, until forced to flee when a cop suddenly approaches. ἀ e organist’s guise relies upon vaudeville stereotypes as does that of the grinning black man with chin whiskers and furled umbrella; similarly, the chorus girl appears, like her counterpart in Types of the Ball Season, wearing a red dress and kicking up her heels. But the grieving widow, dandy, and ashcan kids evidence real-life character observation. ἀ e children vary in age. A paunchy boy arches his body while struggling to hold up a toddler kicking her legs and waving her hand as the organ grinder responds with animated hops. A young boy unself-consciously shuffles his feet to the music while stray dogs roam about. And the hasty departure of the musician as the police approach parallels the contemporary situation, where to regulate and reduce peddling, New York City enacted increasingly restrictive laws regarding public use of city streets (Bluestone, 287). As in A Slight Misunderstanding, Luks relied upon an array of stock images for part of his drawing but refined this further as needed with on-the-spot sketches, combining the two into a seamless narrative. Luks delighted in lampooning figures occupying legitimate positions in urban society: a cab driver tries to hoodwink a fare by demanding two dollars yet settles for the customary fifty-cent rate when the customer demurs (Truth, January 23, 1892, 15); a salesman drums up business by tacking up a sign reading “unless you are willing to try Jones Bitters” beneath a directional marker indicating “take this road to the cemetery” (He Thought So [Truth, August 12, 1893, 7]); a dandy tries to evade paying his tailor fee by requesting the bill be sent round only to discover a hulking brute named Bill emerging from behind the shop curtain to demand payment (His Bill [Truth, December 30, 1893, 17]). Police receive special ridicule: a cop uses a nightstick to roust a loiterer only to cower as the hulking offender towers over him (One A.M. [Puck, December 23, 1891,305]); police accost an innocent man standing on a street corner, accusing him of loitering (The Policeman of Today [Truth, June 17, 1893, back cover]); and a detective socializes with hotel guests, oblivious to crimes being committed (Our Hotel Detective [Truth, April 30, 1892, 5–7]). In contrast to the somewhat superficial sports images (four sketches) and political cartoons (six drawings) that Luks executed and which one finds in

An Illustrator Comes of Age abundance from numerous artists in popular magazines, he also made drawings from life experience as an artist, vaudevillian, and alcoholic. ἀ ese reprise themes first drawn by him on the pages of Puck. Whereas sports drawings poke fun at athletes (The Rise and Fall of the Amateur Athletic Wonder [Truth, May 20, 1893, back cover]) and political sketches caricature politicians (The Hayseed Legislator [Truth, November 18, 1893, 10] and the Mugwump [Truth, November 25, 1893, 10]), the nemesis of alcohol was something Luks experienced personally, haunting him since youth when, as a drugstore clerk, he drank a barrel of cider and passed out behind the counter (Perlman, Immortal Eight, 57). Employed at the Philadelphia Press in 1894, Luks visited O’Malley’s bar daily while needling his roommate Everett Shinn about the latter’s teetotaling habits (Sloan, 8). Prior to the advent of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and recognition of alcoholism as a disease, many Americans regarded excessive drinking as a moral failing or adopted a legal-penal approach by incarcerating drunkards. As Luks derided religion, it is not surprising that his drawings on temperance ridicule such ideas. In The Young Physician’s First Case (Truth, September 16, 1893, 13), an inebriate doctor sprawls on a chair next to an empty case of champagne. A Water Spout (Truth, May 12, 1894, 7) depicts a wide-armed preacher expostulating on teetotaling. Nearby, a table holds a water pitcher and a poster advertises “Dr. Aqua’s temperance lecture.” A Kentucky Catastrophe (Truth, September 24, 1891,19) presents two colonels in suits, vests, string ties, and wide-brimmed hats, conversing while glancing over at a hobbled man. When one asks the other what happened, his friend responds, “Why, he called me a prohibitionist, and I rammed the words down his throat.” Far from criminals, Luks’s drunks invariably appear comedic, as if he conceptualized his own inebriate swaggering as funny, a situation evident in Lost from Self-Admiration (Truth, April 1, 1893, 14). Yet the sad reality was, as John Sloan remarked, that, when drunk, Luks’s conviviality turned to brawling (Sloan, 7). Whether drunk or sober, as a magazine and newspaper artist Luks understood deadlines and experienced firsthand the precariousness of making a living from art. What is different about his cartoons on art-making appearing in Truth, in contrast to those he drew for Puck, is the extent to which they reveal Luks’s personal dislike for academic and society artists, and those who pandered to their tastes. Luks expressed this displeasure in five satirical drawings. Conformists are satirized in The Old and the New (Truth, May 7, 1892, 5), depicting a garret artist drawing a model. “In the olden times all posing was

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An Illustrator Comes of Age

Fig. 2-14. Our Diana Remodeled to Fit Chicago, Truth, March 26, 1893, 9.

done by the model,” reads the caption. A second scene portrays the painter standing amid an elegantly dressed crowd, the caption noting, “Now the artist does some himself.” Luks often ranted about the rich buying Old Master paintings, and he attacked such commercial fakery in Brothers in Art (Truth November 26, 1892, back cover), a chromolithograph portraying an unscrupulous dealer overseeing a process where five successive artists pounce a design onto the canvas, paint in sky effects, add landscape details and distant haze,

An Illustrator Comes of Age and apply a brown varnish. When complete, the dealer takes away the finished painting, “fit for the hall of any flat in town.” Within this series, Our Diana Remodeled to Fit Chicago (Truth, March 26, 1893, 9; fig. 2-14) presents a satire based upon Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s famous gilt bronze designed in 1891as a weathervane to top Madison Square Garden. Luks’s Diana lacks the lithe grace and classic proportions of SaintGaudens’s work, as well as her characteristic bow and arrow. Her hefty torso and grotesque feet support an outstretched arm clutching a ham. Her forthright nudity, a cause of scandal in 1891,is covered over by links of wurst. Her hair contains the caption “World’s Fair Swelling,” a reference to the notoriety heaped upon Chicago as a result of hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition. America’s second leading city, birthplace of the skyscraper, and world leader in meat packing, Chicago is effectively mocked in its claim to cultural and economic prominence by equating its tastes with the vulgar business of processing foods. Luks further ridicules ideals of classical beauty and timeless form, highlighting the inability of such values to accommodate contemporary realities of industrialization, mass-market production, and commerce. ἀ emes Luks rehearsed in Puck and Truth and the artistic sources for his art would carry through to many of the newspaper drawings he would create for Hogan’s Alley and the Verdict, but not before he sharpened his technique and diversified his repertoire as a journalist for the New York World. ἀ e many drawings Luks made for Pulitzer’s paper challenge the notion of the artistreporter as someone merely dashing off depictions of burning buildings and similar phenomena. Drawing for the papers tested Luks’s abilities, stretching his imagination and creativity, and resulted in a body of largely overlooked but interesting work.

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Chapter Three

Life on the Press Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World At the close of 1883 Luks determined to seek out alternatives to magazine work. By January 1894 he secured a position on the Philadelphia Press, rooming with Everett Shinn, an odd arrangement. Nearly every day the debonair, abstemious Shinn intervened to rescue the squat, pudgy, bibulous Luks from O’Malley’s bar, a drama made comic by Luks’s insistence upon wearing a striped plaid coat, cream-colored corduroy vest, flowing black tie, and jaunty bowler hat (Perlman, Immortal Eight, 54, 57). In the 1890s most American newspapers contained drawings, though at first these were merely line pictures traced over photographs, the photo image subsequently bleached out, leaving only the linear sketch (Perlman, “Drawing on Deadline,” 115–116).By the time Luks joined the Press, photo tracing had been abandoned in favor of artists sketching assignments on the spot, making quick, shorthand notes, occasionally developing fully realized details to lend scenes veracity; working from memory and collaboratively, artists transformed these field notes into pen-and-ink drawings, from which a photo-engraver produced a zinc line plate and metal stereoscope to be fastened directly to the press cylinder for printing (Perlman, “Drawing on Deadline,” 116–11 7). [ 86 ]

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World It is not possible to identify Luks’s work from among these anonymous, collaborative drawings. ἀ e peripatetic nature of newspaper employment—by mid-1895, when future Ashcan school artists John Sloan and William Glackens joined the Press, Shinn had moved on to the Philadelphia Inquirer, while Luks secured a job on the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin—further complicates efforts to trace these works. Yet Luks’s drawings survive in quantity from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and the New York World, and these provide a reliable index of his newspaper graphics. Artist-reporters of the time were highly dependent upon editors like the World’s Joseph Pulitzer, who demanded they create drawings to accompany the straightforward exposés and publicity stunts designed to garner public support for the newspaper’s causes as well as feed the appetite of the public for more news. ἀ e adoption by Pulitzer of new graphic techniques to highlight such stories, including easier-to-read typeface set in fewer columns of text per page, bold headlines, and Sunday feature sections, such as the comics and women’s pages, further helped market the news, as did the adoption in 1893 of new multicolor and, by 1898, half-tone printing presses. Pulitzer’s newspaper sold at cheaper cost than traditional papers and created a revolution in how newspapers were marketed and sold, realizing a huge increase in subscriptions.1 Following William Randolph Hearst’s entry in 1895 into the New York market with his purchase of the New York Journal, competition between the two rival papers helped ensure the expansion and durability of such innovations. Other newspapers quickly followed suit. A surprising number of Luks’s drawings for the World cater to the demands of this new brand of journalism. Setting aside reporting on the Spanish-American War (the subject of forty-eight Luks drawings) and excluding the Hogan’s Alley cartoons, of the more than 150 illustrations Luks made for the World, 34 illustrate racial peculiarities, 27 depict grizzly murders, bizarre accidents, or inhuman acts; 14 focus on salacious gossip; 13 are overt, self-promotional advertisements for the newspapers themselves; and 4 depict foreign atrocities. Only 19 treat of city life in a generic way; 13 portray high society; scarcely a dozen cover politics, sports, or religion; while 18 fall within the scope of general cartoon humor. But prior to working on the World, Luks spent time on the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Luks’s jump to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in mid-1895may have been occasioned by the opportunity to work as a “Special” artist-reporter, an assignment promising individual, complete control over each drawing, the whole prominently signed on an equal basis with the

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World news reporter’s byline. Only two Ashcan school artists, George Luks and William Glackens, ever worked as “Specials.”2 ἀ e Bulletin acted quickly, sending Maurice McCarthy O’Leary as correspondent and Luks as artist-reporter to Havana in mid-December 1895, the two men arriving at the end of the year. Full-fledged insurrection against Spain erupted in February 1895, and violence spread across the country by mid-April as insurgent Cuban leaders José Marti, Máximo Gómez, and Antonio Maceo returned from exile to foment rebellion (Smith, 8). Between October 1895 and January 1896, Maceo and Gómez took their invasion across the entire length of the island. Attempting to halt insurgent progress, Spanish forces under Martinos Campos devised a trocha system, a fortified trench sixty miles long and 200 yards wide stretching from north to south, and effected a naval blockade to prevent insurgents from receiving supplies (Smith, 11).In response, insurgents devised a strategy of guerrilla warfare, hiding by day and emerging at night, attacking railways, telegraph lines, and sugar plantations (Morgan, 249). Bogged down by the necessity of patrolling the trocha and protecting sugar plantations, Spanish troops were debilitated by the ever-present danger of malaria, affording insurgents the opportunity to spread the uprising to western provinces and the very outskirts of Havana, transforming the capital into an armed camp with cannons erected in public squares and sentries patrolling city streets (Smith, 17). Such was the situation when Luks and O’Leary arrived and the principal reason why, despite boasts to the contrary, Luks remained confined to Havana with the possible exception of a one-time train trip to inspect war damage.3 ἀi s lack of security explains the context of the drawings Luks made. Most sketches required ten to fifteen days’ transport to reach Philadelphia and appear in the newspaper (Glackens Papers, Microfilm Reel 4709, frame 648). Since Luks’s drawings were first published on January 15, 1896, they were likely drawn around January 5, a date confirmed in O’Leary’s first dispatch noting that on that day their steamer lay south of Key West and was expected to make Havana harbor around sunset. Beneath a front-page headline declaring “Spanish Soldiers in Want of Funds,” four sketches portray bored passengers wiling away time. A steward in dark slacks and cap with a white napkin in his right hand converses with a gentleman holding a pipe seated on deck beside a small table. An elderly man clad in a suit and derby hat stands in the rear of the vessel among coils of rope, stroking his chin while gazing out to sea. A woman wearing a leg-of-mutton sleeve gown sits stiffly upon a piano stool plucking out a tune as her gentleman companion nonchalantly stuffs both hands into

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-1. Morning Review of Volunteers, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 18, 1896, 1.

his trouser pockets. Perhaps the most telling drawing is the last, depicting a cage crammed with live chickens next to a large, wicker-encased jug labeled “GIN,” an ominous portent of how Luks would spend the bulk of his time and the ultimate cause of his firing two months after landing. While based on observation, the figures’ outlined contours and schematic faces almost certainly rehearse the style Luks practiced previously as a newspaper artistreporter for the Philadelphia Press before moving on to the Bulletin. Even so,

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World Luks proudly included his full initials at the bottom of these drawings providing the first prominent recognition he received as a “Special.” Once in Havana, O’Leary and Luks settled into a familiar routine; confined to the capital, they gleaned war news from visitors to the hotel bar. In his first dispatch, O’Leary complained bitterly against press restrictions, and Luks made do by sketching scenes of daily life. ἀ e first of these, Morning Review of Volunteers (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 18, 1896, 1; fig. 3-1), depicts the Prado, principal plaza of the capital, with distant ranks of recruits massed in formation before a tree-lined, cobbled thoroughfare as carriages process along and well-attired civilians stroll beneath a shaded loggia. ἀ e picture provides an excellent example of Luks’s newspaper work. He practiced a standard technique, representing deep perspective with plunging diagonal lines, adding just the right amount of observed detail and schematic filler material as with distant soldiers assembled on the plaza, creating the semblance of an authentic scene. ἀ e drawing is signed and dated January 7, 1896, and carries Luks’s byline, “made by a staff artist of ‘The Bulletin’ on the spot.” Luks’s standardized version might well be compared with Glackens’s 1898 drawing for McClure’s, A Street Scene at Tampa Bay, a close-up rendering where spectators line the roadside as troops of U.S. soldiers carrying rifles and toting rucksacks march down the middle of the thoroughfare. ἀi s precisely detailed scene is made possible by Glackens’s eyewitness account. Contrastingly, Luks’s far more schematic sketch indicates his soldiers are derived from hearsay descriptions made plausible by an on-site rendering of the left foreground loggia. ἀi s first Luks drawing is paired with a more ambitious sketch, Spanish Troops at the Solstice (fig. 3-2), drawn the same day, and this may have been the fateful trip where insurgents attacked the reporters’ train during its limited tour under armed Spanish escort to a deserted village within close proximity of the capital. ἀ e drawing depicts Spanish soldiers patrolling the empty streets of Arroyo Arenas. Several have taken refuge from the sweltering heat under verandas. Acute perspective recession is again evident. At first, one is convinced of the reality of this scene, though forms delineating huts, rocks, and a church steeple evidence they have been sketched summarily, quite possibly at various times or based simply on verbal descriptions jotted down then subsequently assembled into a composed scene as the occasion required. ἀ e band of soldiers reinforces this idea, for while the foremost profile figure appears drawn from life, the remainder are as schematic as the houses. A standard procedure employed by newspaper artists was to undertake a careful

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-2. Spanish Troops at the Solstice, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 22, 1896, 1.

study of one individual then reemploy the same in crowd scenes, inserting the more fully realized image into the foreground to lend a note of veracity. In fact, in the very next drawing Luks submitted, A Cuban Insurgent Scout on the Alert (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 20, 1896, 1), he recycled this same foreground soldier from Spanish Troops, only that figure now faces front and is relabeled an insurgent. Under pressure to report actual skirmishes rather than merely describe imminent threats, O’Leary filed reports on January 22,

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World 1896, of recent Spanish victories at Tironas and Tirado and described incessant insurgent raids. ἀ e accompanying sketch by Luks, titled Troops Guarding the “Great Bridge,” reemploys the stock soldier as if he now were a squad of three volunteers on patrol, seen once facing left, once facing right, and once from the rear. Another technique was simply to sketch the setting itself summarily as in Insurgent Destruction of Property (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 23, 1896, 1), depicting rebels tearing up railway tracks under cover of darkness, or Ruin of the Bridge at Bejucal (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 25, 1896, 1). In point of fact, bereft of an identifying caption, the silhouetted figures in these two drawings could portray almost any railway disaster. Alternatively, Luks sometimes depicted scenes of destruction as if observed from afar. ἀi s had been a common feature of disasters illustrated in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and a strategy allowing him to render smallscale, generalized drawings with minimal details yet convincing enough to seem plausible.4 Ruins of a Plantation (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 8, 1896, 1), depicting a field hand standing before the smoldering rubble of a former plantation home with bare trees in the background, and The Execution of a Spanish Spy (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 29, 1896, 1), depicting the unfortunate man tied to the trunk of a palm tree as an insurgent firing squad discharges a volley of shots, exemplify this type. Similar to Spanish Troops at the Solstice, Plantation Hands on Their Way to Havana for Safety (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 22, 1896, 1; fig. 3-3) makes use of several individually observed figures composed as if seen on the spot. Two children walk beneath an umbrella; a peasant woman carries an olla while balancing a wicker basket filled with crockery and household items atop her head; a barefoot boy in white slacks, shirt, and sombrero leads two tethered goats; farther down the road a high-wheeled donkey cart piled with goods plods along. ἀ ough giving the semblance of reality, the boxed description immediately beneath the drawing noting, “Family possessions are carried on the cart which is characteristic of Cuba,” hints that the picture is descriptive rather than reportorial and therefore a composite arranged to plausibly represent the fleeing workers. ἀi s may be compared with a similar scene, Coolies Seeking Places of Refuge (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 3, 1896, 1), portraying eight Chinese sugar plantation laborers wearing broad-brimmed hats and carrying possessions in bundles tied to poles slung over their shoulders walking down a palm-lined road. ἀ ese refugees are merely outline forms with generalized features. Were it not for the caption, one would be hard-

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-3. Plantation Hands on Their Way to Havana for Safety, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 22, 1896, 1.

pressed to identify them as Chinese. Luks simply heard of the growing influx of sugar laborers fleeing the violence of the countryside and drew the scene based on verbal descriptions. When Luks arrived in Cuba, Spanish forces had succeeded in capturing and imprisoning one insurgent leader, identified only as General Cepero in the news dispatches and the subject of two Luks drawings. An examination of the two works provides a good comparison of Luks’s working method. ἀ e detailed portrait bust, General Cepero, the Captive Insurgent (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 23, 1896, 1), is followed two days later with a generic, panoramic scene, General Cepero on the Way to Prison (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 25, 1896, 1). ἀ e capture of the rebel leader offered a propaganda opportunity for the Spanish, who touted the event as proof of effective colonial policy. Journalists were encouraged to sketch the imprisoned insurgent, and his image was circulated widely in photographs. Many artist-reporters used such photographs as the basis for their drawings. Whether Luks produced his sketch during a face-to-face sitting or copied it from a photograph

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World is unknown. But the evident care he took to delineate Cepero’s features, including deep-set eyes with arched brows; long, aquiline nose terminating in a stiff, bushy mustache; rounded chin; and shocks of curly hair receding slightly about the forehead obviate the lifelike quality of the portrait. Americans were curious about these insurgent leaders, and the opportunity to present the face of one on the front pages of a metropolitan newspaper made for good copy, providing a personal touch to an insurgency soon to embroil the United States. Contrastingly, General Cepero on the Way to Prison lacks vitality, the face and figure being schematic. Two short strokes define the mouth, the torso is wooden, volume is rendered in broad parallel lines of the pen, while the hat he wears eliminates the need to reproduce the general’s shock of hair. ἀ e military squad flanking Cepero is rudimentarily sketched, as are the onlookers. ἀ at this is a composite drawing is confirmed by the elaborate ball finials atop the prison gateway in the background, the same entry Luks used in the sketch Plantation Hands on Their Way to Havana for Safety, indicating the stock setting of both drawings. Luks probably did not learn of the resignation of Captain General Martinez Campos on January 7, 1896, and the appointment of the battle-tested General Valeriano Wyler as his successor until disembarking at the Cuban capital.5 But Luks expended considerable effort in producing six drawings of the lavish farewell festivities held in Campos’s honor. ἀ ese appeared on the front page of the January 30, 1896, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. ἀ e visual recording of the splendid farewell reception was bound to convey the aura of Spanish prestige and power. One Luks drawing, Captain General Martinez Campos Embarking, is sufficiently detailed to indicate Luks may have been present. Yet two others—Reception to Campos in the Palace Huruna and an untitled sketch showing Campos, Bishop Santander of Havana, and a third figure conversing at the reception—evidence a mixture of direct observation in the elaborate room appointments and principal figures combined with schematic outlines for several others. ἀ e most beautiful drawing in this entire series, The Grand Cathedral of Havana (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 31,1896, 1; fig. 3-4), was crafted two weeks after Luks’s arrival. It is entirely picturesque, as much a postcard image as reportorial of the way life in the capital ground on despite the insurgency. Positioning himself in the center of the large, cobbled plaza fronting the cathedral, Luks accurately rendered the elaborate baroque facade with alternating recessive and projecting wall surfaces, engaged columns, niches,

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-4. The Grand Cathedral of Havana, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 31, 1896, 1.

broken pediment, and multistoried campanile. Horse-drawn coaches process along one side, as an elegantly attired gentlemen, a woman in lace mantilla, a cleric wearing cassock and biretta, and a hapless beggar fill the foreground space. In its one-point Renaissance perspective and Old World motif, the composition retains an academic quality atypical for Luks. But in the years prior to 1898, before the United States declared war on Spain and military engagement still a few years away, newspapers were anxious to promote the exoticism of Cuba, no doubt a device further intended to spur interest and

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World readership, and various newspapers featured such picturesque images. Even at the outset of war, an article in McClure’s titled “Cuba Under Spanish Rule, Personal Impressions of the Island, the People; of Government, and the War for Freedom,” by Major-General Fitzhugh Lee, stressed the picturesque nature of Cuban scenery, including such images as palm-lined waterways and quaint cityscapes. Similarly, Luks’s drawing appeared above a poetic caption noting that ashes of Columbus reposed in a tomb inside the cathedral and dwelling at length upon the moss-covered walls of the campanile, the caption lending a touristy, postcard quality to the image. Although he produced an accomplished drawing, Luks must have received some communication from the newspaper demanding action-packed battle scenes more likely to rivet the attention of Bulletin readers than romantic images of Baroque churches, for during the remainder of his time in Cuba, with the exception of four sketches, the Bulletin published nothing but scenes of combat. Despite the byline, “drawn by a ‘Bulletin’ artist on the spot,” they are imaginary. Staccato-like strokes summarily minimize volume in An Insurgent Vidette Scouting (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 1, 1896, 1) and In Hot Pursuit of a Scout (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 10, 1896, 1). Others feature panoramic bird’s-eye perspectives impossible to render if one were actually in the thick of battle. Examples include Advance of Insurgent Outpost at Guara (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 8, 1896, 1), where a lead scout emerges from a jungle thicket with a band of rebels following close behind, and Machete Against Sword (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 22, 1896, 1), portraying close-quarter mounted combat between Spanish and rebel forces. An Insurgent Vidette Scouting depicts six rebels riding in close formation wearing sombreros emblazoned with a star; In Hot Pursuit portrays a lone figure fleeing from a Spanish posse as he is shot and falls backward on his mount. ἀ e clarity of all these is obscured by heavy ink scribbling and dark tonal masses, a situation that contrasts markedly with the detailed on-the-spot renderings made by Glackens for McClure’s three years later. At the time Luks drew these, he also wrote a lengthy letter to his former New York roommate Everett Shinn on February 14, 1896. From the safety of the Hotel Roma, Luks boasted of dangerous Cuban combat and touted his supposed artistic success: I just returned from Pisco del Rio where the fighting is on thick and fast. . . . I tell you this kind of war would scare the boots off of an

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World ordinary chestnut beauty. It’s just like Indian fighting. . . . I got a commission from the Spanish government to make a drawing of battle as I am the only man here who got the sand to go out with the soldiers, the Spanish and French artists here sit in cafés with the rest of the so-called war correspondents who get their news from the local bakes and have it translated for cabling, sign their names, and then its published. . . . Well I finished my drawing and when its published in Barcelona I will send you a copy also. ἀr ough the government I’ve been invited to exhibit a battle picture this June at the Barcelona exhibition and assured by the knowing ones that it not only will be purchased but take a medal as well, so I am more than pleased with my prospects. (Shinn Papers, Microfilm Reel 952, frame 909) Far from receiving coveted invitations, by mid-February Luks succumbed to alcoholism and was dismissed from the Bulletin. Ignominiously sent home on a New York City–bound steamer, he seized upon the April 1896 arrest of Maurice O’Leary to fabricate the lie of his own capture and release: “ἀ e Spiggoties slammed me in the cooler, put me away with the rats and the Cubans, and deliberated whether to shoot me at dawn or sundown” (Time, January 26, 1931, 52). Luks’s lonely drawing Moro Castle (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 7, 1896, 1) may have been sketched as that steamer headed out of Havana harbor and toward an uncertain future in New York. En route home, Luks had two additional drawings published: Sacking of the Town of Jaruco, Cuba (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 2, 1896, 1; fig. 3-5) and “Cuba Libre!” The Daring Battle Cry (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 28, 1896, 1). Cuba Libre! depicts massed troops clashing upon a field of battle similar to scenes previously described. Sacking of the Town of Jaruco represents Luks’s most elaborate history composition in the Grand Manner. ἀ e drawing bears all the hallmarks of artful fabrication, particularly in the building at the right with its colonnaded arcade, balconies, and louvered doors, the very same structure Luks drew in Cuban Suspects on Their Way to Imprisonment, supposedly a scene in Havana. ἀ e dramatic depiction of diagonal flames and smoke shooting across the picture plane and the fleeing mother and child at lower right repeat key compositional elements found in John Singleton Copley’s epic historical tableau The Death of Major Peirson (1782–1784; Tate Gallery), itself a scene of urban siege and pillage and a painting Luks probably saw during his 1889 visit to London, providing a tantalizing

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-5. Sacking of the Town of Jaruco, Cuba, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 2, 1896, 1.

clue that his boast to Shinn may not have been entirely specious and that Luks entertained hopes of creating a grand picture in his own right. Luks landed in New York City the first week of March 1896, for by the fifteenth of that month his first drawing appeared in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World under the caption “Look Between the Fingers of ἀ at Concealed Hand, Mr. Cleveland.” ἀ ough a cartoon, it acquired added authority with the appended phrase, “ἀ ese pictures are by a Sunday World artist just come back from Cuba.” ἀ e drawing depicts the face of President Cleveland at upper left, whose vision is obscured by an ermine-robed king identified as “Spain” frantically waving his hands before Cleveland’s visage. ἀ e king’s action conceals four atrocities: “Piling Up of the Dead at Guatao,” “Peaceful Workmen Shot Down Near Matanzas,” “ἀ e Bombardment of Cabanas,” and “Spanish Soldiers Murdering Women at Guatao.” ἀ e lurid nature of these scenes, complete with soldiers bludgeoning women, the murder of unarmed civilian workers, and bombardments killing innocent children, exemplify the desire of Pulitzer to sensationalize news and provoke war. Luks was not the only artist-reporter to attempt such drawings. Working for the New York Journal,

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-6. Torture by the Garrote in Morro Castle, New York World, April 1, 1896, 4.

for example, Frederick Remington drew a picture for the February 12, 1897, edition featuring the image of a young woman stripped naked by Spaniards and standing humiliated in their midst.6 A similar sensationalism lies behind Luks’s stark depiction of a prisoner’s execution in Torture by the Garrote in Morro Castle (New York World, April 1, 1896, 4; fig. 3-6). Beneath the looming walls of Morro Castle, a solitary shrouded prisoner sits in the executioner’s chair with an iron collar attached to a tourniquet fixed about his neck. Watched by clergy who avert their gazes, the executioner tightens the screw, causing the prisoner to suffocate and breaking his neck. Silhouetted against the black fortress wall, the white-sheeted prisoner appears as a spectral apparition, while the accompanying article augments the horror by detailing how the bungling executioner protracted the agony. Such executions were not public events, although this drawing appears as if made by

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World an eyewitness. ἀ e World published it nearly a full month after Luks returned from Cuba. ἀ e realism is explained by an editorial insert following the article referring to a similar drawing based on a photograph published in the previous week’s World. Acknowledgment of that photograph provides compelling evidence Luks almost certainly based his own drawing after a similar, if not the same, image. ἀ e last Cuban drawing, New York Crowds Hiss the Queen of Spain (New York World, April 5, 1896, 25), presents a tableau from the Barnum and Bailey Circus parade through the streets of Manhattan featuring costumed figures of “Queen Victoria” and the “Queen of Spain.” Realizing the possibility of a story, the World prevailed upon circus officials to allow Kate (Swan) McGuirk, a woman reporter, to appear as the Spanish queen for one evening with the intention of reporting the hostile reaction of the crowds. Clad in a red velvet gown with a high hair comb and lace mantilla, and seated beside a costumed boy posing as the regent prince, McGuirk rode in an open Victoria through the streets of Manhattan on a blustery April evening. As expected, spectators booed, gamins flung mud, and verbal insults rained down. Realizing the growing threat, the costumed contingent left the parade early to return to Madison Square Garden as the World succeeded in getting its scoop with McGuirk, reporting, “It’s a pity Congress couldn’t have been along to have heard what this town thinks of Spain” (New York World, April 5, 1896, 25). Assigned to cover the event but facing a deadline to draw portrait sketches of the infamous mass-murderer H. H. Holmes scheduled to appear in that same World edition, Luks probably opted not to attend the parade. While he may have slipped into the Garden beforehand to sketch the pair, it is likely he simply relied on editorial copy on which to base his sketch, for the drawing made to accompany McGuirk’s story, while replicating the costume described in the news article, is a flat outline presented with scant detail. Although figures are shown close-up, faces of the principals are frontally posed to minimize their features. Two years elapsed before Luks returned to the Cuban theme, by which time dramatic developments altered the political situation. Wyler’s reconcentrado policy failed to stem the insurrection while alienating the local population, leading to his recall on October 31,1897 (Smith, 24–27). In the summer of 1896, revolt against Spanish rule erupted in the Philippines, forcing the Spanish to engage in wars on two fronts, impacting their ability to defend Cuba and contributing to the loss of strategic fortifications on that island (Smith, 24). On January 1, 1898, Spain instituted limited Cuban political autonomy leading to

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World riots from pro-Spanish Cubans and the dispatch of the USS Maine to Havana to defend American interests (Morgan, 249, 272). With the Maine’s sinking on February 15, 1898, tension reached the breaking point. On March 30, 1898, the United States officially demanded a cessation to the Spanish war against Cuba. Spain adamantly refused to do so, prompting Congress to authorize a war fund and ambassadors from Great Britain, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and Austria to urge restraint (Morgan, 286–291). Following President McKinley’s request to Congress for a declaration of war and enactment of a naval blockade around Cuba, Spain officially declared war on April 23, 1898. A series of lightning-quick American victories, the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, the landing of U.S. Marines at Guantanamo Bay on June 10, the Battle of San Juan Hill on July 1, and the destruction of the Spanish fleet in Santiago Harbor on July 3 led the Spanish to sue for peace on July 26, 1898,and the signing of Peace Protocols on August 12, 1898 (Morgan, 300–301). Luks drew nine anti-Spanish cartoons for the World dating from the period after the declaration of war. ἀ eir creation after April 1898is significant. Unlike the careful drawings made for the Bulletin or Luks’s first efforts appearing in the 1896 World, the 1898 sketches are comparatively crude propaganda. ἀ ey reflect patriotic zeal subsequent to the declaration of war while revealing the jingoistic bias of the press to shape popular opinion. Appearing on the front page of the Sunday Comic Weekly Section, five drawings mock Spain’s braggadocio dreams of victory and the hopelessness of that nation’s cause. Spanish War Bubbles (New York World, May 15, 1898,Comic Weekly Section, 1) depicts a stereotypical Iberian in toreador pants, bolero jacket, sombrero, and fringed sash clenching in his mouth a long-stemmed clay pipe, from which he blows bubbles containing scenes that deride his swaggering rhetoric. Captioned “ἀ e Only Way ἀ ey Can Bombard New York,” one bubble portrays a squadron of Spanish cannons firing at a map of the city, while another captioned “Once in New York Our Brave Soldiers Will Feast in the Homes of Millionaires” shows a desperately hungry Spaniard gnawing on bones scavenged from an ash bin. How Spain Can Raise War Funds (New York World, June 5, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1) mocks the inability of the already overextended Spanish treasury to provide sufficient war funds. Included among the eight vignettes are scenes featuring General Praxedes Mateo Sagasta appearing in tutu doing a war dance for pay, the Spanish boy-regent placing himself on exhibit at a dime museum, and General Valeriano Weyler standing before a flaming cauldron about to perform a sword-swallowing act. Figures are

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World uniformly buffoonish, drawing is rudimentary, drama is highlighted by strong color representing dripping blood, and there is little sense of carefully thought composition as three-dimensional space is largely nonexistent. Additional drawings include Blanco Doomed! (New York World, July 10, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1), depicting the bemedaled Blanco amid bursts of cannon fire, each explosion featuring an exaggerated Spanish military claim, and All Is Lost Save Honor (New York World, July 24, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1), portraying a grimacing Spaniard clutching a bloody dagger in his teeth while clinging to a rocky outcrop representing Cuba.7 ἀ e cartoon nature of these drawings befits their appearance in the Comic Weekly Section rather than on the news pages, although their gory and jingoistic content is strictly meant for adults rather than children. By 1898 Luks’s principal contribution to the World was as illustrator for the Comic Weekly Section, and it is difficult to believe that the cartoon content of these anti-Spanish drawings accurately reflects his attitude, especially in light of the Hogan’s Alley cartoons of December 20, 1896, and January 17, 1897, offering a more tempered response to events in Cuba. A Luks drawing, Sagasta’s Last Dream (New York World, July 17, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1), whose image and theme are purloined directly from Charles Nelan, cartoonist for the New York Herald, suggests this to be the case. Nelan’s cartoon How Will He Feel When the Pipe Gives Out? (New York Herald, June 7, 1898) portrays a male figure of Spain reclining in an opium den blissfully smoking a pipe filled with “Sagasta dope” while clouds of the narcotic labeled “Blanco’s mule stories” and “Cevera’s reports of great victories” fill the sky. Five and a half weeks after Nelan’s cartoon appeared, Luks drew Sagasta’s Last Dream, adding the subtitle, It Was an Opium Smoke, repeating principal elements found in Nelan’s drawing including the candle, pipe, dope box, and smoke filled with improbable mirages, comprising the sinking of the American fleet, the secession of the American South, financial panic in New York, and European powers lining up to extend unlimited credit to Spain. ἀ e parallels between these two artists’ drawings reinforce the notion that Luks merely fulfilled the minimal requirements of his job, relying heavily on Nelan for both intent and content. Four remaining cartoons speak against militarism and the glorification of war, corroborating Luks’s less bellicose attitude. ἀ e first of these, Will the Military Spirit Have This Effect on Our Future? (New York World, May 22, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1), appeared shortly after the outbreak of hostilities, while the last appeared after the signing of the Peace Protocols. Military

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World Spirit questions the long-term effects of a whipped-up war psychosis upon the American people as scenes depict future schoolboys presided over by a teacher-general drawing war maps, children playing naval battles with toy boats in Central Park ponds, bellhops in regimental uniforms standing in military formation, and a street sprinkler spewing water as if it were an artillery gun. A full-page cartoon lambasting adulation of Admiral George Dewey following his naval victory at Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, is equally skeptical. Cannot a Man Become a Hero without All These Liberties Being Taken with His Name? (New York World, June 19, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1) depicts a crowded New York thoroughfare where a plethora of signs proclaim the “Dewey Real Estate Company”; urge fairgoers to “ride the Dewey wheel”; promote fashions like the “Dewey shave” and new food crazes, including the “Dewey sandwich wrapped in Manila paper”; and advertise a Broadway play, Dewey at Manila Bay. Amid the hullabaloo, a lone figure stands at lower left directly above Luks’s signature operating a game of bait and switch beside a sign reading “the Dewey shell game,” a double entendre alluding to the admiral’s heroics at Manila Bay and the phoniness of the subsequent hero worship. Appearing at the zenith of the war, with patriotism at fever pitch, this critique marks a courageously bold departure from prevailing graphic sentiment. While cleverly eschewing direct criticism of the war’s most popular hero, Luks succeeds in undermining Dewey’s accomplishments by equating his name with cheap commercial advertisements of the type commonly promoted in newspapers like the World. ἀ e pun against Dewey is reprised in The Wonderful Trained Whale at Coney Island (New York World, August 14, 1898, Comic Weekly Supplement, 4), where children frolic in the surf near a chained whale as bystanders try their luck shooting it and a posted sign announces “3 for 5, the new naval game, bombard the whale.” Luks’s last Spanish-American War drawing, U.S. Soldier and Sailor: Are We in It? Well, Say! (New York World, September 11,1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1), addresses the tainted beef and substandard rations provided to American soldiers in Cuba, a scandal plaguing the McKinley administration throughout the fall of 1898 and into the winter of 1898–1899,compelling the resignation of Secretary of War Russell Alger in July 1899 (Morgan, 323–327). Luks’s satire depicts the faces of a grinning U.S. Marine and sailor surrounded by animated foods, including turkeys, beef, lobsters, and delicacies like beef tongue and plumb pudding. When not featuring war stories, newspapers promoted themselves through comics, advertisements, and sensational news. Luks’s role in fostering

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-7. The Great Sunday World, New York World, April 4, 1896, 14.

this commercial agenda is little known, but the importance of cartoonists is evident from a January 16, 1898, World article featuring interviews with C. G. Bush of Harper’s Illustrated and other cartoonists at a convention hosted by the paper. Luks contributed two drawings, A Symposium of Cartoonists and A Congress of Comics, lampooning the event by depicting artists flying winged, rolled-up drawings into the assembly hall. Luks also composed thirteen newspaper advertisements. ἀ e earliest, dated to April 4, 1896, may be the first piece he created specifically for the World. ἀ ough commercial, these drawings are fresh observations of street gamins and constitute extremely important early examples of Luks’s interest in depicting East Side children prior to assuming responsibility for the Hogan’s Alley series originated by Outcault. The Great Sunday World (New York World, April 4, 1896, 14; fig. 3-7) and Sunday World 8

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World Funny Pages and a Magazine (New York World, May 9, 1896, 9) are particularly delightful. In the former, a young woman wearing a short jacket, plaid skirt, high-buttoned shoes, and enormous black feather–festooned hat walks along with outstretched arms holding a copy of the Sunday World opened to the Women’s Page, a new feature designed to attract middle-class housewives and women subscribers. ἀ e word “women” is deliberately misspelled “wimin,” the woman turning her head toward the viewer, brandishing a toothy grin, quipping, “ἀ at’s the way I spell it!” Phonetic speech became a standard device in the character dialogue Luks would write for Hogan’s Alley. In a class-conscious age, such speech established the character as an unschooled slum dweller like the Hogan’s Alley gang, objectifying her as a picturesque curiosity outside the customary middle-class realm of World readers, a waif at whom proper housewives could laugh while subliminally imbibing the message that the Women’s Page is entertaining. In the lower right, a mutt chews a section of the newspaper, adding further visual interest. Like the character of Buster Brown’s dog soon to advertise shoes or the RCA Victrola pooch, the appearance of the cartoon dog forges a link between the world of commerce and animals. ἀ e admixture of art and commerce is evident in similar drawings: Sunday World 8 Funny Pages (New York World, October 24, 1896, 16) portrays two children in equally ludicrous outfits who pass another child wearing a sandwich board advertising the paper; Did You See These Articles in Yesterday’s Great Sunday World, a cartoon title used for drawings in both the April 20, 1896, and the May 25, 1896, editions, shows, respectively, a man looking at a wall of broadsides and a boy projecting lantern slides. Sunday World 8 Funny Pages and a Magazine features a gamin in patched smock and top hat smoking a cigar while escorting two leashed bulldogs bearing signs advertising the Sunday comics. ἀi s drawing enticingly promotes the humor in comics, for the animals’ robust, snarling appearance leaves little doubt they could easily overpower him. Luks focused on this very occurrence in Innocent Kid and His Innocent Bulldogs, Tom and Ted (New York World, December 4, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1), where two bulldogs placidly follow their master until they spy a boy carrying a chicken, at which point they tear across the field, devour the chicken, then quickly resume their placid appearance as if nothing happened. Luks further engaged in a bit of self-promotion in the April 21, 1898, World, where he sketched a scruffy hobo advertising the Sunday comics, including the “great wrestling match of the Little Nippers, funny serial by Luks.” He further drew attention to the ample comic pages in The Next Great

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World Sunday World (New York World, May 22, 1896, 14), where eight rambunctious boys, each wearing a number (one through eight), tussle and fall over one another, as the first boy in the lineup reads the Sunday magazine. Occasionally these cartoon advertisements promoted popular sports and new forms of recreational activity, a case in point being Sunday World’s Bicycle Page (New York World, April 17, 1896, 16), where a puffy-cheeked infant, curly hair waving in the breeze, faces front as he energetically rides a bicycle directly out of the page, although his tiny feet are too short to reach the pedals. Newspaper advertisements further provided opportunity to develop and test character types Luks would later feature in his own Hogan’s Alley cartoons, including Buster the masked anarchist and Nelse the cop, figures first seen in 8 Funny Pages and a Magazine (New York World, September 5, 1896, 12), and grinning twins Alex and George in 8 Funny Pages (New York World, October 9, 1897, 14). In the former, Buster, wearing what will become his characteristic black facemask and holding a sword in his right hand, ignites a fire beneath an obese man snoozing blissfully in a hammock while a group of three children look on as Nelse the cop gestures in Buster’s direction. In the latter, Alex climbs a ladder to paint the inscription “8 Funny Pages” onto a brick wall but accidentally kicks the bucket, splattering paint atop George’s head. Occasionally Luks features animals acting together with gamins to advertise the newspaper. On one occasion, a grinning, curly haired boy sits below a sign promoting the World’s comics tacked to a barn wall (Undoubtedly the Best Number of the Great Sunday World [New York World, June 5, 1896, 16]). ἀ e fun and mischief to be had are visualized in the role reversal, when a bulldog looks confusedly back at its tail where two feathers have been tied while the plucked chicken is seen chained to a doghouse bearing a warning to beware of the dog. ἀi s chicken foreshadows the appearance of Mose, a streetsmart bird whose character Luks would develop in a series of cartoons the following year. Animals acting out human scenarios to promote a moral is an age-old device harkening back to Aesop’s Fables and the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. ἀ eir use for the commercial purpose of selling newspapers indicates yet again the intersection of modern commerce and art. Yet when free to compose animal drawings apart from mere commodity value, Luks created beautiful illustrations true to the heuristic intent of fables. Porkville’s Four Hundred in the Merry Waltz (New York World, November 28, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5), A Balmy Day in Frogland (New York World, November 7, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), and The Animals Start a Circus and Make the

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World Men Perform (New York World, April 12, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 8) are particularly fine examples. Porkville satirizes the manners of New York’s elite, portraying them as pigs at a fancy cotillion attired in a calliope of varied fabrics, including stripes, polka dots, checks, and plaids, the colorful patterns and styles paired with appropriate and varied facial expressions indicating merriment, hauteur, priggishness, and boredom. Frogland, in turn, pokes fun at the self- consciousness of the middle classes enjoying a summer outing to Coney Island’s midway, where garishly dressed frog families listen to a boardwalk orchestra, mill about, watch a high wire act, or purchase sweets from a vendor. The Animals Start a Circus calls into question social norms by drawing attention to a moment when the natural order is reversed and animals put trained humans through their paces in a variety of circus acts. While comics and advertisements sold newspapers, stories of bizarre events constituted a principal reason why people purchased papers. Luks contributed no fewer than twenty-seven illustrations of this type. In April and May 1896 he provided drawings for World articles covering the grisly murder trials of two serial killers. His sketches vary from Woman Jury Speaks for Itself (New York World, June 7, 1896, 19), depicting photo-based portraits of female jurors the World selected to review the murder case against Alice Almont Livingston Fleming, to Mrs. Fleming and the Sunday World’s Women’s Jury (New York World, June 21, 1896, 21), representing the defendant’s facial expressions. ἀ e sequential nature of such stories, with gory details appearing on successive days of the trial, sustained readers’ morbid curiosity, guaranteeing the purchase of subsequent editions. Luks’s first illustration in this genre appeared on the front page of the April 5, 1896, World beside the headline “Holmes Confesses.” ἀ e scene depicts a full-length portrait of convicted mass-murderer H. H. Holmes sitting serenely in his cell writing his memoirs, while phantasms of his victims float amid the darkness and a shadowy gallows looms above. ἀi s drawing, too, is based on photographs, common enough among artistreporters when an exact likeness was required. ἀ e Philadelphia origin of Holmes may have been an additional factor in the decision to assign the illustration to Luks. Calling Holmes “the greatest murderer of modern times,” the World chillingly recounted how he wrote his memoirs “as calmly and coolly and remorselessly as he murdered. . . . ἀ ere was never a more extraordinary criminal than this man, who . . . will hang. . . . ἀ e Jack the Rippers, the stranglers, the Holmeses are as rare in nature as two-legged calves or seven-leafed clovers” (New York World, April 5, 1896, 1).

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World ἀ e comparison between Holmes and Jack the Ripper made by the World subtly suggested a relationship with the London murders of 1888, in which a number of prostitutes had their throats slit and bodies mutilated, leading many to believe the perpetrator had training in medicine. Letters to the press purportedly from the Ripper created further consternation, leading Puck to publish a cover by artist Tom Merry featuring the bearded Ripper holding a bloody knife while examining mug shots of himself.8 Aspects of the Ripper’s crimes parallel those committed by Holmes, including mutilation, written accounts of the deed, even the killer’s bearded face. World editors dwelled at length on the haunting stare Holmes emitted from his “evil eye” as the cause of both his criminal behavior and his uncanny ability to lure victims to their fate, and Luks produced two drawings on this subject, Holmes Has the Evil Eye (New York World, April 19, 1896, 24) and Under the Blight of Holmes’s Evil Eye (New York World, May 3, 1896, 23). ἀ e World in fact often had its artist-reporters depict such anatomical features in so-called human-interest stories. Richard Felton Outcault, for example, drew an entire page of men’s eyes, including those of a prelate, statesman, financier, politician, soldier, and orator.9 In so doing, both he and Luks updated the Romantic tradition of earlier nineteenthcentury painters such as ἀ éodore Géricault, who rendered the deceptive and shifting gazes of the criminally insane in various paintings. Focusing on the popular belief that Holmes achieved his evil deeds through the power of his evil eye, a notion rife in the folk cultures of East Side dwellers whether of Jewish, Italian, Russian, or Polish descent, Luks drew a double sketch. ἀ e right half featured a close-up of the murderer’s face against a backdrop of ghostly apparitions, frontally posed, beside which an enlarged rendering of Holmes’s left eye—delineated by hatched lines with an intensely dark pupil, bushy brow, and fleshy lid—created a hypnotic effect. ἀ at “baneful” eye, noted the paper, brought ill luck upon all who pursued Holmes. If gory murders made sensational news, women murderers and women news reporters constituted an additional human-interest factor exploited by the World. Luks first teamed with World reporter Kate (Swan) McGuirk on April 5, 1896, to report the reaction of New Yorkers to Spain. Subsequently, he teamed up with her to illustrate her feature news story “ἀi s Street Arab Eats a Delmonico Dinner” (New York World, April 19, 1896, 24) about a poor newsgirl treated to a banquet. At the same time he illustrated the Holmes trial, Luks sketched the exploits of World reporter Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who analyzed the character of accused murderer Alice Almont Livingston Fleming, focusing

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-8. At Rest in the Morgue, New York World, May 17, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 18.

on the latter’s compulsive smile. Luks enhanced Wilcox’s written description with a series of sketches featuring the downward curve of Fleming’s lower lips, her sideways smirk, her tongue thrust against her mouth, and an enlarged, centrally positioned image of her toothy grin. Focusing on a woman reporter’s emotional evaluation of another woman’s criminal motivations, the content of this article leaves little doubt that the World’s underlying concern lay in the novelty a female reporter’s newsgathering capabilities represented for the general public. ἀ e extent to which editors would exploit this new resource

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World is apparent in a May 17, 1896, World article, where the paper asked Wilcox to spend a night locked inside the city morgue to contemplate the cadaver of an unknown female suicide victim, subsequently printing a story under the banner headline “Ella Wheeler Wilcox Studies the Mysteries of the Morgue,” illustrated with drawings by Luks (see fig. 3-8). ἀ ese depict the anonymous victim alone in her hotel room contemplating death and subsequently her cadaver at the morgue. From a dark, icy chamber, its locked, wooden door flung wide, a slab supports her semidraped body resting with its right arm frozen in rigor mortis. ἀ e detailed setting would indicate Luks either accompanied Wilcox to the morgue, or received specific information from her, or that he was already familiar enough with the site to produce an exact description for his drawing. ἀ e stark image underscores the cautionary tone of Wilcox’s article, indicating the angst many experienced as expanding opportunities altered gender expectations: “ἀ e disappointed woman of today is seldom a suicide. . . . Perhaps like many another modern woman, she was the victim of unwise ambitions. Because women are allowed to do so many things in these days they strive to do everything. . . . She who essays everything fails in all” (New York World, May 17, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 8). It is curious that as an educated woman, poet, and news reporter, Wilcox held this attitude, illustrating the extent to which traditional values still held sway, or reflecting, perhaps, more conservative views of the paper’s subscribers. ἀ at Luks pandered to such views is suggested by a parody he drew, Unknown Husbands of WellKnown Wives (New York World, May 24, 1896, 4), where Wilcox is first seen as a precocious, spectacled toddler in a high chair reading Homer’s Iliad, then as a mannish accountant wearing slacks and vest reading Tennyson’s Poems in her office, finally as a mature woman with a masculine face complete with handlebar mustache and reading her own poetry. Stories about changing societal attitudes, especially regarding sex, sold newspapers. Gay New York Business Men Lunching with Their Pretty Typewriters (New York World, July 19, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 18; fig. 3-9) is Luks’s detailed rendering of middle-aged brokers treating their young secretaries to luncheon. ἀ at such an act would constitute news—much less the subject of art—indicates the still novel circumstance of a more casual mixing of the sexes within the business culture of New York City. Less than a decade earlier, men exclusively occupied secretarial positions. ἀ e invention of the typewriter and subsequent standardization of clerical work, coupled with ample supplies of female college and business school graduates, altered the conditions of

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-9. Gay New York Business Men Lunching with Their Pretty Typewriters, New York World, July 19, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 18.

office employment. By the 1890s women held the bulk of secretarial positions, becoming so identified with the job they commonly were referred to after the principal piece of office equipment they operated (Schneider and Schneider, 15–16, 27–34). In his picture, Luks renders idiosyncratic portraits. A paunchy, balding, middle-aged man twirls the end of his bushy mustache, while a younger, dark-haired woman wearing a high-necked, balloon-sleeved dress and a ribbon-festooned bonnet sits across the table from him. In the left background, another woman wears a wide-brimmed hat trimmed with lace and flowers, while her male companion sports a plaid jacket. Several female secretaries wear equally elaborate hats, while their escorts display a variety of body types and ages. Carefully rendered torsos suggest these are real rather than imagined types. ἀ e random spacing of tables and chairs accurately conveys the appearance of a compact, crowded restaurant during a busy lunch hour. ἀ e specificity of the finial knobbed chairs with caned backs and spindled arm supports further suggests the recording of an actual place rather than an imagined one. ἀi s degree of veracity indicates the World assigned Luks to dine at this establishment and record the scene or else had a photographer make a candid shot that served the artist as an exact model. In either case, the

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World novel social setting conveyed an atmosphere fraught with latent sexuality and therefore of interest to the press. Two years later, Luks could openly suggest such office dynamics in a three-panel cartoon appearing in the November 27, 1898, World depicting a portly man waiting outside his nephew’s office door, where a kissing couple are silhouetted through the window glass. Noticing his nephew entertaining a sweetheart, the man waits patiently until the door opens, and he discovers the woman to be his own wife. Between July 19, 1896, and November 27, 1898, Luks illustrated three additional articles and drew five additional cartoons on relations between the sexes, including The Foolish Summer Man (New York World, August 2, 1896, 28) and The Silly Summer Girl (New York World, August 28, 1896, 29), a reprise of the summer resort romance theme he drew previously for Truth. Taken as a whole, these five drawings cast independent, strong women in a negative light, suggesting the artist’s own discomfort with the changing sexual dynamics and repeating a common canard in newspaper illustrations of the era. Accounts of bizarre human acts and accidents provided additional gossipy news, tempting the reading public to purchase papers. Luks illustrated five lurid articles on human tragedies, the bulk of these during his first month of employment. With the possible exception of Deadly Kansas Duel (New York World, September 13, 1896, 22), whose Midwest plains setting is, however, presented as tinged with lawlessness, the majority illustrate exotic locales. ἀ ese include Tragic Easter Rites of the Penitents (New York World, March 22, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 19), featuring crucifixion rituals of southwestern Indian tribes; An Eternal Tomb of Arctic Ice (New York World, April 5, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 1), picturing a polar explorer buried in an iceberg; and A Modern Jonah Proves His Story (New York World, April 12, 1896, 22), recounting the saga of a sailor swallowed alive by a whale and later rescued. Deadly Kansas Duel illustrates a common enough, albeit tragic, threshing accident on the Great Plains. In an era when agriculture shifted away from horses toward steam power, mechanized threshers represented the novel expansion of the machine into the countryside, forever altering the pastoral ideal long governing American life (Marx, 145–226). Considering the influx of rural transplants into America’s cities after the Civil War, many only familiar with the horsepowered farm equipment common in their youth, Luks’s dramatic illustration depicting the collision and explosion of two steam-powered threshing machines, their mutilated drivers flung into the air, would have seemed as remote as his depictions of frozen arctic explorer John Verhoef, companion

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World of Robert Peary, entombed in a sheet of ice, or British sailor James Bartley thrown overboard from his ship and swallowed by an enormous sperm whale, surviving in the creature’s belly for thirty-six hours before being cut alive from the behemoth’s stomach. Luks’s similarly fabulous rendering of Verhoef provides a touchstone for gauging his facility in summoning imaginative abilities to create sensationalized drawings. From time to time Luks based his fabulous drawings on life sketches. ἀ e profile bust of New York police officer John T. Conway in Do You Call This Man Homely (New York World, April 19, 1896, 22) is one example. With the public intensely interested in Police Commissioner ἀ eodore Roosevelt’s promise to reform New York City’s police, the World sensed a story after learning of Roosevelt’s remarks labeling Conway “the homeliest man on the force,” and sent Luks to draw the officer. True to assignment, Luks rendered Conway’s pronounced chin, protruding upper lip, upturned nose, and prominent forehead. Far more morbid, Parents Exhibit Their Dead Babies (New York World, July 26, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 19) presents Luks’s copy of a photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Lyons flanking a curtained box containing their five embalmed quintuplets. ἀ e difference between the photographic realism of these two examples and the more generalized, imagined sketch completed for the September 6, 1896, World, Vermont Boy’s Strange Malady (New York World, September 6, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 29), depicting the sleeping head of a child whose pursed lips whistle musical notes while he sleeps, underscores the varied approaches Luks used in crafting drawings as the assignment warranted. ἀ e difference between an imagined sketch and a photograph-based drawing is evident when one compares Hypnotic Helmet for Insanity (New York World, May 3, 1896, 26; fig. 3-10) with Edison in His Laboratory Working with the X Ray—From Photographs Taken by the Sunday World’s Own Photographer (New York World, March 29, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 1). As the latter title indicates, the sketches are based on photographs. ἀ e focus is on the scientific genius working in his laboratory, extraneous detail eliminated. Luks’s “objective” photo-drawing acquires an added aura of authority by reprinting above the image a quote printed as if written in Edison’s own hand: “ἀ e description and illustrations of experiments made at the laboratory on Roentgen ray in today’s World are correct.” Contrastingly, Hypnotic Helmet presents several physicians clustering about Dr. John Wood, who demonstrates his hypnotism apparatus on the head on an insane woman. ἀ e elaborately furnished interior

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-10. Hypnotic Helmet for Insanity, New York World, May 3, 1896, 26.

and the studied faces of the figures themselves describe a self-contained tableau-drama in keeping with the verbal description in the text reminiscent of a Gothic novel: “He then showed me a metal piece of head gear (his own invention), which he fastens on the head like a night cap, and by pressing a screw to any part of the cranium he can act upon certain brain cells and the patient will do his bidding. It gave me a creepy sensation to think that it was in the power of another human being to render me perhaps an automaton at his will!” As in Puck and Truth, Luks treated the subject of race in the World. Eight drawings focus on African Americans, three on the Irish, and one on the

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World Chinese. Irish cartoons rehash stereotypes of clumsy laborers. Workers spill mortar-filled hods (The Pipe That Was Reached For [New York World, October 9, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1]), are careless with explosives (untitled [New York World, November 6, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 2]), or fall from roofs (Thoughtful Advice (New York World, December 4, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 2]). Luks’s Lord Li-Pop (New York World, August 30, 1896, 16) compares the lord’s mustache to the drooping whiskers of Cuban General Maximo Gomez, one of several similar caricatures by World artists intent on recording impressions of the traditionally clad Chinese diplomat. Favorable reports about African Americans, such as Negro Boy with a Wonderful Memory (New York World, July 12, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 22), present the child as a curious oddity despite being copied from a photograph. Alternatively, cartoons of blacks as savages (A Missionary Report [New York World, September 13, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 2]) are rampant. ἀ e most stereotyped treatment of African Americans is the series Mose the Trained Chicken and its later offshoots, The Little Nippers and Mose’s Incubator. ἀ e first of these, Mose and the Pickaninnies Have a Crap Game and Uncle Remus Enjoys It (New York World, June 27, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 5; fig. 3-11),appeared following a five-month period when Luks exclusively drew the Hogan’s Alley strip after its originator, Richard Felton Outcault, jumped to William Randolph Hearst’s rival Journal. Luks subsequently returned to the Mose series on January 16, 1898, but shifted focus to a wondrous incubator capable of hatching strange and mischievous creatures, terminating that strip on April 17, 1898. Concomitant with the exploits of Mose’s Incubator, Luks initiated the Little Nippers series on September 12,1897, completing the last drawing on April 24, 1898. While he made many original contributions to Hogan’s Alley, Luks must have felt a certain lack of fulfillment in perpetuating another artist’s work, mindful that at any moment Pulitzer could lure Outcault back with an even better salary offer. Such a concern may have been a factor in Luks’s decision to experiment with his own series and further his reputation as an original cartoonist.10 ἀr ee of eleven cartoons from the Mose series appear on the same page as Luks’s rendition of Hogan’s Alley, providing a visual comparison between the two strips and enabling readers to gauge Luks’s talent as an original artist. ἀi s parallelism extends to the image content as well. Mose the Great Trained Chicken in His New Act as Melon Inspector (New York World, July 4, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 4), where Mose and a group of African American children prepare to eat watermelon, a leisure activity

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-11.Mose and the Pickaninnies Have a Crap Game and Uncle Remus Enjoys It, New York World, June 27, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 5.

purportedly “typical” of young blacks, is paired with Hogan’s Alley Kids Have a Fishing Party on an East Side Dock, where Mickey Dugan and his gang are engaged in a “typical” leisure activity of urban tenement kids, both mythologies fostered in stereoscope slides of the era. Mose and the Pickaninnies Have a Crap Game and Uncle Remus Enjoys It first introduces the racially caricatured characters from this series. ἀ e white-bearded Uncle Remus, wearing a ratty straw hat and thick spectacles, and smoking a corncob pipe, peers out a shanty window while a buxom Aunt Chloe in polka-dot dress and striped bandana, with hoop earrings accenting her earlobes, sits at right overseeing six children. Lucinda stands at left in a striped dress and oversized feathered bonnet, her finery reminiscent of a minstrel showgirl’s. Next to her stand George Washington, Percy, and Dan, variously clad in hand-me-down jeans, shirts, and caps, including an open tomato can. ἀ e two youngest stand close to their auntie’s skirts and glance over at the lanky Mose in the middle foreground engaging the boys in a game of craps. In addition to signing this cartoon at lower right, Luks printed his name following the dialogue below the drawing, evidence he authored that dialect-inflected speech:

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World Mos e the chicken: Do yer bettin’! Uncle R emus: Yah! Yah! Yah! Lordy! Geor ge Wa shingt o n: Stop yer pushin’! Per cy : G’wan niggah! Rastus: Come seben! Come elebben! Aunt Chl o e: You oughten be ’shamed of you’self, encouragin’ dem chillun ter gamble you old white haired sinnah. Dan: Come seben! Come eleben! My honey wants a new dress! Lucind a: Ise not yer honey, you little brat! Lit tle Mand y : Mammy, I wants ter play! Aunt Chl o e: If yer daddy warn’t such a lazy mite he’d have time to play hossie wid you. Uncle R emus: Yah! Yah! Yah! Lordy!—G. B. LUKS ἀ e characters’ appearance and language rehearse well-worn stereotypes discussed previously. What is noteworthy, however, is the name Uncle Remus for the elderly black man, indicating Luks’s familiarity with the fictitious narrator of southern folk tales recounted in “Negro” dialect as imagined and invented by Joel Chandler Harris. A writer for various Georgia newspapers, Harris compiled African American lore heard during his childhood, inventing the character of Uncle Remus the Old Slave to narrate these tales and publishing them in 1881as Uncle Remus Legends of the Old Plantation. ἀ eir success led to further compilations in 1883 (Nights With Uncle Remus) and 1892 (Uncle Remus and His Friends). Although Harris viewed his efforts as preserving the fading voice of former slaves, and frequently wrote about the need for southerners to “reconstruct” their past racial attitudes, in the atmosphere of the 1890s Uncle Remus tales primarily acquired an entertainment value for white readers, who discovered in their “quaint and homely humor” confirmation of race stereotypes (MacKethan, 87–96). In the Mose cartoons, features like toothy grins, kinky hair, thick lips, and behavior—including eating watermelon, prancing about to banjo music (The Justly Celebrated Trained Chicken Mose Does a Buck Dance [New York World, July 11, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 8]), and singing spirituals (The Kalsomine Family Glee Club in Full Action—The Trained Chicken Mose Conducts the Rehearsal [New York World, August 8, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 8])—confirm that Luks, along with many other (white) Americans in the 1890s, subscribed to such pervasive stereotypes. Buck dancing originated among West Indian

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World slaves, who eventually passed on its clogs and shuffling steps to America. Following Reconstruction, shuffling merged with a motion known as the pigeon wing, or the shaking of one leg in the air, giving rise to the buck-and-wing adaptation frequently seen at minstrel shows (Chujoy and Manchester). ἀ e dance was popularized in sheet music (The Shuffling Coon, 1897) and stage performances (Black Patti Troubadours, 1895) contemporary with Luks’s drawing. ἀi s relationship between the Mose cartoons and racially coded imagery borrowed from popular culture also exists in The Kalsomine Family Glee Club, where the gaping mouths of the children repeat the action of the black singing quartet in Our Songs and Those Who Sing Them, drawn for the March 12, 1892, edition of Truth. Several Mose cartoons reinforce notions of class and race by presenting African Americans performing menial chores (The Kalsomine Family on Wash Day—The Trained Chicken Mose Works the Wringer [New York World, September 15, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 5]), being easily swindled (The Kalsomine Family Start a Policy Shop [New York World, September 5, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 8]), or acting in ways injurious to themselves, as when Uncle Remus volunteers to be the target at a carnival side show (The Kalsomine Family Practise [sic] Ball Throwing [New York World, August 1, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 4]). In striving for humor, Luks inadvertently referenced segregationist practices by depicting blacks recreating separately from whites (The Kalsomine Family’s Artificial Coney Island [New York World, July 25, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 4]) or suffering an ignominious defeat at the hands of the chicken Mose (The Great Trained Chicken Mose Delivers In-Shoots, Out-Curves and Drops Galore [New York World, July 18, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 4]). Even when acting independently (The Kalsomine Family Start a Klondike of Their Own and the Trained Chicken Mose Pans Out a Twenty Dollar Bill [New York World, September 22, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 4]), their efforts appear venal. ἀr ough all these activities, the family remains under the thrall of the savvy Mose. While the conceit of wise animals engaging in human activities and imparting a moral lesson is a well-used trope in fables and features in the Uncle Remus tales, Mose lacks the wiles of creatures populating Harris’s stories or the folksy wisdom of Uncle Remus himself. When not engaged in mundane behavior, his activity is self-indulgent. In the one instance where he manages to demonstrate slyness (Policy Shop), neither he nor the Kalsomine family learns a lesson from the experience, unlike the sly fox or rabbit

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World of the Uncle Remus fables. Such venality and conniving constituted typical behavior for blacks stereotyped in cartoons of the period, especially since it contradicted the expectation of honest labor for honest work underlying the dominant Protestant work ethic and so further established African Americans as a class set apart (Gordon, 60–61). Mose the chicken may be yet another instance of cultural racism, stealing and eating fried chicken associated, like eating watermelon, with stereotypical African American behavior. ἀ e pervasive extent of such typecasting in American popular culture is apparent in Mr. Santa Claus of Coonville (New York World, December 12, 1897, Comic Weekly Supplement, 1), where Luks portrays a grinning, blackface Santa tiptoeing up to a shanty toting a crate of squawking chickens. Luks ceased drawing Mose on September 5, 1897. In the interim, he invented the Little Nippers, commencing the strip on September 12 and continuing uninterruptedly through September 26. He then briefly returned to drawing Hogan’s Alley between October 3 and December 5, 1897, intermittently reprising the Little Nippers on November 14, 1897. Shortly before the return of Outcault to the World in February 1898, Luks revived the character of Mose in a new incubator series that premiered on January 16, 1898, and ran until April 17, 1898. Drawing the Little Nippers provided Luks a mechanism for resolving the issue of what to do with the East Side characters he created for Hogan’s Alley. Bereft of their leader, Mickey Dugan, and cut adrift from their alley setting, the kids seem to flounder. In their first solo cartoon, The Little Nippers Start a Kids Colony (New York World, September 12, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 8), they stand about a yard beneath a sign advising, “We expect to be settled by next week en then we’ll give you fun to burn.” A week later, the Nippers succeed in establishing their racially and ethnically diverse colony and place on trial the Yellow Kid, with twins Alex and George presiding (The Little Nippers’ Kind Kids Colony—A Court Room Scene [New York World, September 19, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5]). Subsequent exploits feature Alex and George paving roads (Street Making in the Little Nippers’ Colony [New York World, September 26, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5]), an incident related to the election-year issue of the condition of New York City’s streets; practicing vaudeville routines (The Little Nippers Rehearse for the Vaudeville Stage [New York World, November 14, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5]), a career path offering social and economic advancement to many aspiring immigrants; gorging themselves at an American ἀ anksgiving dinner (The Little Nippers’ Thanksgiving Feast [New York World, November 21, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 8]);

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World and engaging in sports (The Little Nippers in Their Great Wrestling Match for the Championship of the East Side [New York World, April 24, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 4]), yet another pathway to achieving the hoped-for American dream. On January 16, 1898, Mose the Great Trained Chicken Runs an Incubator Show debuted on page 8 of the Comic Weekly Section and may have been occasioned by the addition of fellow Philadelphian and future Ashcan school artist William Glackens to the World staff. Luks persuaded Arthur Brisbane to hire Glackens. In return, Glackens collaborated with Luks on a comic page, “New Fun For Children,” Luks furnishing the leading cartoon at the top half of the sheet and Glackens the secondary one on the bottom half.11 Seizing upon the idea of an egg-hatching incubator, a prop first appearing in the summer of 1897 in The Kalsomine Family Start a Klondike, Luks reprised the comical Mose, who now hatches strange creatures from objects placed inside a glasswalled incubator at a state fair midway. A recent invention, egg incubators brought the wonders of science directly to the American heartland as farmers now witnessed applied technology revolutionizing agriculture. Yet if mechanized agriculture promised a rich harvest, it also raised serious questions about the loss of self-control over one’s affairs and seemed to challenge the natural order. ἀi s angst emerges as a constant theme in literature of the nineteenth century, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818,revised 1831) to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn (1884). Like Victor in Frankenstein, who violates the natural order by using science and alchemy to create life with tragic consequences, Mose uses science for his own purposes by hatching a pair of Chinese babies from a machine designed for chicks (A Street Parade to Advertise Mose’s Incubator Show [New York World, January 23, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 8]). But his plan goes awry when, in subsequent cartoons, he loses control by turning his invention into a contest. Continually placing new objects in the incubator, he hatches ever more and fanciful creatures, resulting in complete chaos and pandemonium: black twins are hatched from chocolate drops (January 30, 1898); flying machines from balloons (February 6, 1898); monkeys from muffs (February 13, 1898); American Indian babies from feather dusters (February 20, 1898); dogs from frankfurters (February 27, 1898); giraffes from walking sticks (March 6, 1898); fish from scales (March 13, 1898);and so on. As ever more frisky beings are spawned, the cartoons become a jumble of activity, and a loss of visual clarity—signifying

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World social disorder—results. ἀ e breakdown of order is also a central theme in Hogan’s Alley, a perceived threat of unchecked immigration. Yet if technology and lack of social order pose a threat and racism is present, Luks also saw the incubator as representing a more positive—because uncontrolled—symbol of the expanding population of an ethnically diverse New York City. A sign next to the incubator proclaims, “Notice to Chinamen. You need not fear de Kearney Exclusion Law anymore.” Although not averse to using racial epithets, Luks generally looked with favor upon the slums and would make immigrants a principal focus of paintings like The Spielers. In these Incubator cartoons, he delights in the chaos and its resulting effects, inviting children—the hope for the future—to share in this change by naming the various figures generated. ἀi s positive outcome is reinforced in the parodying of social ritual evident in An Easter Parade in Central Park (New York World, April 3, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 8) and Mose Previews the Easter Parade of the Incubator Brood (New York World, April 10, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 8). Here the fabled chicken in coat, derby hat, and spats proudly watches his hatchling brood of African Americans, American Indians, Chinese, animals, and objects process through Central Park in honored review before the grandstand, as did actual immigrant groups in Washington Square Park in celebration of their ethnic heritage, a subject painted by William Glackens. Luks also treated conventional topics in unconventional ways. Illustrating a story on religion, for example, he drew the peculiar garb and religious dances of Shakers in upstate New York (Mt. Lebanon Shakers at Worship [New York World, July 12, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 20]). Sports drawings sometimes praised the fierce and unexpected competition of scrappy teams (Chinese Football Players in Valiant Scrimmage [New York World, January 31,1897, Sunday Magazine, 28]), though this is also a case of racial stereotyping. Political illustrations tend to be copied from photographs (Mrs. Platt and Her Theories [New York World, July 12, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 27]) or blatantly satirical (What They Would Do to Each Other if They Could [New York World, May 10, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 3]). But Luks seems to have enjoyed most illustrating stories about society, cabaret life, and exploits of actors. At a New York East Side Social Ball (New York World, March 15, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 25) and In Gay New York at the Casino (New York World, March 31, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 26) are typical. ἀ ese feature a random placement of multifigured sketches across a page, depicting types as varied as stout millionaires pouring

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World champagne into glasses containing silver dollars, leggy chorines, society gents out on the town, and a struck-it-rich cowboy shooting off his pistol in a casino. In an age of conspicuous consumption, the eclipse of New York’s elite Knickerbocker families by nouveau riche investors lavishing great sums erecting Fifth Avenue mansions while keeping social calendars filled with cotillions, polo games, horse shows, and charity events made for gossipy news. Newspapers vied to be first in reporting such activities on expanded “society pages” made eye-catching with illustrations provided by artist-reporters. ἀ e public craving for such news partly resulted from rapidly evolving rules of social behavior occasioned by the expansion of wealth and leisure in the decades after the Civil War.12 Conservative frugality and proscribed rituals of conduct, hallmarks of the old moneyed elite, gave way to a new culture favoring conspicuous consumption, whether in dress, lavish mansions, costly sports such as yachting and polo, or the endowing of cultural institutions like New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Metropolitan Opera (Jaher, 270–275). As reported in the World and illustrated by Luks, such stories presented the lives of millionaires in one of two ways: the wealthy were wondrous to behold, beyond the ken of middle-class Americans, all the more to be respected because of the prominence and power such wealth afforded them, an approach adopted in Boy and Girl Millionaires Interviewed (New York World, June 21, 1896, 30). Presenting portrait images of Harry Payne Whitney; his fiancé, Gertrude Vanderbilt; and Edwina and Helen Gould, the article portrays Whitney as an avid sportsman, playing polo, hunting tigers in Africa, and idling the summer away in Newport, Rhode Island, while the Goulds are depicted as cycle enthusiasts. ἀ ere is little originality to these drawings except in the small, fanciful inset of Whitney shooting a tiger. ἀ ey are matter-offact outline sketches, which indicates that Luks undertook them as a routine assignment. On the other hand, the World delighted in the foibles of the rich as fodder for satire, at which Luks excelled. ἀ e vast majority of his society illustrations are of this type. New York Horse Show Fancies (New York World, November 14, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 1; fig. 3-12)is typical of three cartoons on this theme. An annual autumn event, the New York Horse Show not only featured equestrian displays, it also allowed the rich to flaunt their wealth by purchasing coveted private boxes for reviewing riding demonstrations, acquiring expensive thoroughbreds, lavishly displaying livery and coaches, and attending various balls associated with the occasion. In his drawing, Luks features a

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-12.New York Horse Show Fancies, New York World, November 14, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 1.

swaggering couple decked out in the latest riding fashions. ἀ eir ostentation is matched by stiff, jerky postures conveying hauteur yet appearing like the cakewalk associated with African American vaudeville and therefore rendering the couple ridiculous. Seven circular inserts emphasize the hilarity, portraying East Side gamins as hobbyhorse enthusiasts, a police horse riding its master, stubborn thoroughbreds throwing their riders, and a horse decked in glistening saddle and bridle above a caption noting, “fine harness makes a fine horse,” an adage applying to the attendees themselves. Other society

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World activities ridiculed include summer getaways to Newport (Some Human Exhibits at Newport [New York World, September 13, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 3]), the Metropolitan Opera (A Dozen Sunday World Artists at the Opera [New York World, November 22, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 25]), superfluous fashions (Wedding Trousseau of a Young Man of To-Day [New York World, April 12, 1896, 30]), and elite children discussing potential marriage partners (Overheard in the Park [New York World, December 18, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 2]). But it was the experience of living in New York City itself that held the greatest interest. In countless color images by various artists, the World helped New Yorkers visualize and comprehend their burgeoning city. In the Comic Weekly Section for February 20, 1898, artist Dan McCarthy depicted and described the American skyscraper as a “Modern Tower of Babel.” In a twopage spread of the Magazine Section for January 1, 1899, an anonymous artist drew row after row of houses and apartment buildings, the sum of the accumulated wealth of the Astor family. And on November 5, 1899, Louis Biedermann drew a colored rendering of “ἀ e New Broadway, the Street that Knows No Night.”13 Luks participated in this trend, drawing extremes of New York life. Fabrications Not Considered (New York World August 21, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 2) portrays two tramps discussing the easy job of cops lounging about traffic medians. Other examples illustrate subjects as diverse as a clever delivery boy who, forced to transport a crated goat, punches holes in the container, enabling the goat to walk and himself to ride (Every Goat Its Own Express Wagon [New York World, February 27, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 5]), and two gamins outwitting a cop by escaping into a cold storage warehouse, then pouring icy glue on the officer from an upper window and walking away as the cop helplessly protests. Cops come in for particular ridicule in Baby Catchers at Work [New York World, June 7, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 3]), where police impound stray babies in cages or pacify them with milk supplied from a giant tank outfitted with nipples, a jibe against proposed curfew laws. Portraying urchins, Luks drew At the Corner Lot Circus (New York World, July 31, 1898,Comic Weekly Section, 3), depicting a young girl on roller skates holding a balance pole in her arms and standing beneath a rigged-up tightrope, while a boy stands ready to pull a chord tied about her waist intended to hoist her up to the wire. A crowd of gamins watches in the background as Muggsy, the gang leader, warns, “Dis event has been spoked about all de week and if yer makes a hit yer marries me and shares de gate receipts.” ἀi s cartoon is very much

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World in the spirit of early drawings by Richard Felton Outcault and demonstrates that both artists developed their East Side subject matter simultaneously. ἀ e sheer size of the city became news when what had been five separate municipalities merged to form Greater New York on New Year’s Day, 1898, under a single mayor. While opposition to unification had been strong in Brooklyn, many fearing such consolidation would extend the reach of machine politicians, proponents advanced the argument that improved access for the working classes to land and housing in Brooklyn would allow “industrious, selfrespecting poor” to separate themselves from the “unregenerate,” mitigating pernicious influences of the slums as well as socialist and anarchist doctrines (Hammack, 203). ἀ e press saw expansion as further opportunity to market newspapers. Following consolidation, a Luks cartoon, Father Knickerbocker (New York World, January 2, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1), celebrated the potential promise and greatness of the new city, its size, population, and wealth eclipsing that of any other American metropolis. Luks portrayed a bewigged, gartered Father Knickerbocker introducing his similarly dressed giant of a young son to an assembled throng of colonials identified with other cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Minneapolis, whose midget sizes evidence their inferior status in comparison with Greater New York. Standing in the forefront, a masked ruffian representing Chicago and miniscule tots representing Newark, Hoboken, and Jersey City gape at the youthful behemoth. As in Hogan’s Alley, Luks utilized the facts of city living to present children with sympathetic humor. How Children at Play Daily Risk Their Lives (New York World, July 5, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 20; fig. 3-13) illustrates an alarmist article about the perils trolley traffic posed to children playing in city streets, a concern echoed in news articles and trade postcards of the period and portrayed by George Bellows in Steaming Streets (1908; Santa Barbara Museum of Art) (Zurier, Snyder, and Mecklenburg, 91). Yet Luks’s drawing, despite the looming presence of the streetcar, lacks a sense of foreboding tragedy. His children are carefree, even joyful, and their well-groomed appearance, complete with doll carriages, well-appointed bonnets, and stylish clothes, lends the sketch a charming, if not genteel, tone. ἀ e emphasis is upon youthful unself-consciousness lovingly observed and accurately rendered, the streetcar inserted almost as an afterthought. Closely related are sketches Luks made for a sensational story, “New York’s Vast Training School of Vice and Vulgarity, Coney Island Is Now a Modern Sodom” (New York

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-13. How Children at Play Daily Risk Their Lives, New York World, July 5, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 20.

World, August 2, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 26). Luks did not share the article’s alarmist attitude. As he would make apparent in Hogan’s Alley, he relished the freedom Coney Island offered, and his illustration underscores this outlook. Luks drew a literal caricature illustrating the paragraph, “Observe the concert hall dancers, degraded women, gamblers, saloon-keepers, fakirs, barkers, etc., that make up the on-rushing wave while from the mists of the ocean

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World rises the spirit of ‘boss’ John Y. McKane celebrating the potential promise and greatness of the new city, its size, population, and wealth now eclipsing that of any other American metropolis.”14 In Luks’s rendition, a horde of loose women and gamblers fling cards and wield daggers and booze bottles while swarming over a dune representing Coney Island, as the zombielike apparition of boss McKane looms over all. It would be hard to imagine this drawing convincing anyone but the most ardent alarmists of its message. However, Luks paired this with a second factual rendering titled “Concert Hall” in Full Blast, where a mixed audience of young men and women watch a “Salome” dance take place on stage. While youth watching these exotic performances did cause concern, and public debate over the immorality of such performances occupied much discussion in the press, the Luks drawing is more reportorial in nature than scandalous.15 Any conclusions about the effect of such dances upon impressionable young minds are left to the reader, while Luks’s matter-of-fact recording ironically provided them with a vicarious, safely distanced glimpse of Salome in action. But if Luks regarded Coney Island as harmless, he ridiculed the purported wholesomeness of outdoor recreation propounded by social reformers. From Saturday Till Monday in the Country (New York World, August 14, 1898, Comic Weekly Section, 1) depicts a city dweller suffering through a tempestuous ship ride followed by an exhausting country hike, an alfresco meal plagued by flies, the din from barnyard animals and pesky mosquitoes preventing him from sleeping, the grueling trek back to town, and the loss of employment upon returning to the city. Similar miseries are endured in The Regulation Picnic on the Glorious Fourth (New York World, July 3, 1898, Comic Weekly Supplement, 4). Luks was further attracted to Broadway, a visible feature of the modern city, drawing fourteen sketches on that theme. Recollecting his vaudeville career, its bohemian lifestyle, and amateur theatricals staged at Henri’s studio in Philadelphia, he remained a lifelong theater fan. Several drawings made as a World reporter during the summer and fall 1896theater season recount visits to the Academy ἀ eater (May 3, 1896); a burlesque performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (May 10, 1896); the melodrama The Sunshine of Paradise Alley (May 17, 1896); Evangeline, a popular Coney Island all-girl review (June 14, 1896); exotic costumes from The Caliph (August 30, 1896); satire sketches of roof-garden impresario Oscar Hammerstein I (September 27, 1896); and the play The Nihilists (November 15, 1896). ἀr ee comment about actors’ private lives, the majority being multifigured caricatures. On at least four occasions Luks made

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Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World

Fig. 3-14. The Center of New York’s Bohemia, New York World, May 31, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 25.

portrait studies, indicating he actually attended the events or had recourse to photographs. One of the most interesting, The Center of New York’s Bohemia (New York World, May 31, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 25; fig. 3-14), describes an after-dinner poetry recital at Maria’s, a favorite restaurant gathering place of the Eight, along with Mouquin’s and Petipas.16 Luks captures the informal, smoke-filled atmosphere of a Twelfth Street basement eatery replete with randomly arranged tables and chairs, conspicuous plates of pasta, and patrons ranging from shopgirls and office clerks to gentlemen slumming on the town. A boozy politician recites poetry while diners display various degrees of interest. Similar to Glackens’s Chez Mouquin, Luks paid attention to the women’s finery, accurately recording plumed and flowered hats and lace collars. But unlike the decadent elegance in that painting, the bare cellar walls and smokefilled atmosphere of Maria’s have more in common with the spartan setting of Sloan’s Yeats at Petipas’ as does the literary nature of the evening. ἀ e accompanying article derided the pseudo-bohemian atmosphere, claiming it “strange that drug clerks and honest typewriters who have been working hard all day should put themselves to the self-imposed pain of listening to original poems.”

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World But Luks thrived in bohemia, recording on other occasions bawdy concert hall performances by Irish variety singer Maggie Cline (A Sunday World Cartoonist’s Impressions of Maggie Cline and “Hogan’s Alley” [New York World, October 18, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 32]) and a striptease act by British import Lona Barrison (The Barrison Frost as Viewed by a Sunday World Cartoonist [New York World, October 11,1896, Sunday Magazine, 26]). Cline’s lusty rendition of the popular Irish novelty song “ἀr ow McClosky Down” brought predominantly working-class concert hall audiences to their feet, proud of Cline’s success and prouder still of this celebration of Irish pluck. Even Outcault’s Mickey Dugan joins in the fun, as he is depicted leaning forward from the adjoining cartoon frame while declaring, “I’m yellow but I’m Irish See!” Luks’s The Great Bernhardt in Her Robe and Roles (New York World, May 24, 1896, 27) illustrates that famous theater personality based on a photograph of her in costume for the role of Tosca. Quite different from the caricature of Impressions of Maggie Kline or the lowbrow realism of New York’s Bohemia, Luks simply uses the surface presented by Bernhardt’s empire-waist dress as a drawing tablet to depict the actress in a variety of emotive poses from the play. ἀ e photograph portrait combined with caricature-like sketches is odd, and one gets the sense that Luks’s heart was not entirely in this assignment. ἀ e variety of subjects Luks drew for the World evidence his multifarious talent and explain why editor Arthur Brisbane placed a high degree of confidence in him, asking the artist to step forward and draw Hogan’s Alley, the Comic Supplement’s most popular feature, in the autumn of 1896. Luks rose to the occasion, producing wonderfully humorous and socially poignant sketches worth a closer look.

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Chapter Four

The Gilded Age from the Other Side of the Tracks Hogan’s Alley

When Luks began his stint at Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, he could scarcely imagine that five and a half months later he would illustrate the paper’s most popular comic strip, Hogan’s Alley, interpreting its impishly loveable character, Mickey Dugan, a barefoot street urchin with bald head, large ears, and buck teeth, perpetually clad in a yellow nightshirt. Richard Felton Outcault’s character debuted in Pulitzer’s newspaper on February 17, 1895.At first Dugan assumed a secondary role in eleven small black-and-white cartoons appearing irregularly between February 17, 1895,and March 15, 1896. On that latter date, and continuing until Outcault left the paper in October, Dugan became the series’ star, the cartoon increasing in size with color added to the strip. ἀ ough gaps in the strip’s appearance between March 15 and May 10 indicate it did not become a regularly occurring feature until mid-May 1896, the presentation of a popular character engaged in exploits every Sunday boosted the World’s circulation to such an extent that William Randolph Hearst, editor of the rival New York Journal, felt compelled to lure Outcault away by offering a larger [ 130 ]

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley salary and the promise of continuing to draw the strip for his own paper. Not to be outdone, Pulitzer hired Luks to continue drawing the Yellow Kid, with the result that both Outcault and Luks offered simultaneously competing versions in rival papers and precipitating a dispute over copyright. ἀi s background raises a host of complex issues involving the relationship between style, aesthetics, and originality, technological innovation, and the market context of the comics. It is evident that Luks’s style in Hogan’s Alley is quite different from drawings he made to accompany news items appearing in the World. In the latter, Luks aimed to convey dramatic incidents required by sensationalized news accounts. But with Hogan’s Alley, the picture itself became “news.” As market commodities, cartoons, the proprietorship of which although originally produced by an individual artist remained contested, boosted Sunday newspaper circulation.1 In such a context, the issue of style—Luks’s originality as opposed to Outcault’s—cannot be understood solely as the uniqueness of one individual drawing against which other images are considered copies or imitations. In Hogan’s Alley, the Yellow Kid belongs to the public domain (the culture of the market place) within which both artists were free to create an interpretive context for the character. Whereas Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley sketches begin as literal, small-scale drawings, tightly drawn and accurately observed (Blackbeard, 29), Luks’s line is always broad and never assumes the pencil-like detail evident in Outcault’s early cartoons. Constrained by preexisting principal characters created by Outcault, Luks’s approach indicates he not only learned from and studied the artistic elements conducive to Hogan’s Alley success, he further drew upon his experience as an artist-reporter trained in memory and distillation of salient features rather than the more “high art” background of a trained illustrator like Outcault. Luks would follow this method in all his Hogan’s Alley cartoons, utilizing it as a foil to create pointed social commentary. Concomitantly, Luks recognized and understood the essentially commercial appeal of the Yellow Kid, and he acknowledged that market value in an advertisement touting the World’s comics appearing on January 30, 1897. A caption across Mickey Dugan’s yellow nightshirt reads, “Say! We aint doing a ting to ’em wid our eight funny papers!!” Dugan stands at the left rolling up an enormous snowball engulfing logos representing Life, Truth, and Puck, satirical journals and rivals to the daily newspapers for a market share of New York readers. Luks implies that the stodginess of these older journals—two of which had previously employed him—can no longer compete with the appeal of the World and its Comic

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-1. Bargain Day in Hogan’s Alley, New York World, January 10, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Weekly Section. ἀ e fact that it is Dugan in a Santa Claus hat uttering this comment provides an indication of just how important Sunday comics had become for boosting sales. In Bargain Day in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, January 10, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4; fig. 4-1), Luks ridicules Outcault’s claim to the Yellow Kid by depicting a shop window with Outcault wearing a dress and bloomers, and

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley holding a patented drawing of the Kid purchasable for sixteen cents. A sign near the drawing reads, “A collar button with every kid,” and a large placard proclaims, “ἀ e Only Original Hogan,” two references to mass-market promotion that parody Outcault’s claim and assert Luks’s right to expropriate the figure. Standing outside, Hogan himself remarks, “Begory, the kid’s changin’ ’em all right.” His comments draw attention to the Yellow Kid dressed in his trademark nightshirt and holding a pair of discarded knickers, indicative of Outcault’s ploy to reassert his claim by changing the location of the cartoon from Hogan’s Alley to McFadden’s Flats and parodied by Luks through the act of having Mickey Dugan change into bloomers. Mickey Dugan’s words emphasize the futility of Outcault’s ploy. By emphasizing his newness, Luks’s Dugan reaffirms his originality despite any similarity to the character created by Outcault. Mickey Dugan’s rowdy act of stripping off his bloomers is echoed by actions of several other kids: one holds an umbrella while flying down into a pair of pants; another manipulates a flying contraption in the distant sky. A family eats and drinks beyond the second-story tenement windows, and a black child plays his banjo. ἀ e scene appears like a tableau enacted upon a vaudeville stage. And these distractions are significant. Nineteenth-century American theatergoers of all classes, far from sitting quietly and gazing passively at performances, talked openly, visited with friends, and yelled shouts and comments to the actors. But as a rising bourgeoisie came to assert cultural and social superiority over working-class Americans by adopting a British mode of polite and passive spectatorship, the way was opened for interpreting passive viewing as an aristocratic assault against the older, democratic mode of participant spectatorship (Kasson, 31). Laden with this cultural memory, participant, rowdy spectatorship became for turn-of-the-century Americans a marker of class, and to the extent that the alley kids—and Luks through the actions of his characters—engage in rowdy spectatorship, they uphold working-class values. In The Hogan’s Alley Kids at the Continuous Performance (New York World, December 5, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5; fig. 4-2), the action unfolds within a vaudeville theater, acknowledging the nineteenth-century environment within which modes of viewing were being negotiated. As participant spectators, our gaze crisscrosses the banks of seats. ἀ e action in the balconies distracts, and we react to kids hanging over the edge, shinnying up columns, and somersaulting in the air. Kids subvert the cop’s authority as he orders hats off, a requirement of bourgeois theater etiquette everyone ignores.

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-2. The Hogan’s Alley Kids at the Continuous Performance, New York World, December 5, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

ἀ e audience reacts by shaking fists, climbing over seats, or throwing bricks at the performer. Recognizing danger, the Yellow Kid sits in a swing, afraid to get down lest he be smacked with brickbats, while another boy steals attention away from the central action by swinging across the theater on a trapeze. Luks began his career as a blackface vaudevillian. Well aware of the chaos that reigned in variety houses, especially during amateur night, he focused his attention on this very subject when he painted The Amateurs (1899, private collection), one of his earliest surviving paintings, where youthful singers stiffly stand side by side and earnestly perform before an audience, knowing they may be booted off at any moment. In both cartoon and painting, the performers on stage appeal because of their earnestness and gumption, and as participant spectators we may smile at the result and even indulge along with the cartoon audience in some catcalling of our own. Luks’s choice to recall

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley and celebrate—rather than censure—this tradition of rowdy spectatorship in both painting and cartoon indicates the extent to which he sympathized with the democratic, working-class audiences who attended these events. It is not surprising, then, that within the context of Hogan’s Alley, far from posing a threat to order, immigrant and working-class kids who populate this neighborhood are drawn with warm affection. In making us laugh, these cartoons break down barriers separating their otherwise alien world from the respectable middle-class one of the newspaper’s readers. Luks plays off the voyeurism of the World’s readers, satisfying their taste for the naughty world of the slums forbidden to them by their self-imposed moral code while making that world more approachable than it might otherwise be. In Valentine’s Day in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, February 14, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4; fig. 4-3), the rambunctious kids clogging the street illustrate these tensions. Amid the alley, African American children share a Valentine. At their left, an eastern European boy wearing a soft black cap and sabot shoes glances at Nelse the cop accosting the postman for having delivered a valentine. In the lower left, another eastern European type plays a violin. Marty Kane, the Irish pugilist, sidles up to a young woman tricked out in a flaring skirt and feathered hat and leers, “Yure my valentine see!” And the Yellow Kid hugs Liz in the middle of the street, while she returns his affection with a kiss to the forehead. ἀ e Kid literally wears his feelings on his sleeve in the form of an embroidered heart. Although celebrated in much of the English-speaking world, Lower East Side immigrants would have experienced Valentine’s Day as a peculiar American phenomenon fraught with difficulties.2 While native-born Americans were wont to stereotype ghetto dwellers as promiscuous threats to public order and the moral superiority of Anglo-Americans, social reformers believed in “assimilating” foreigners by inculcating and promoting a homogeneous identity grounded in shared values exemplified in public rituals and holidays (Hingham, 142–144, 235–242). But while Valentine’s Day brought strangers together through shared rituals, its romantic overtones contributed to an emerging public culture promoting freer social contact and expression among the sexes. ἀi s trend was widely commented upon by social reformers. May Augusta LaSelle, for example, lamented how in their attempt to seek upward social mobility, working-class women wore décolleté blouses, sheer stockings, high-heeled shoes, outlandish hats, and coiffed hairdos, all of which blurred the once secure lines between the classes (Peiss, 63). In light of such observations, the dress and demeanor

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-3. Valentine’s Day in Hogan’s Alley, New York World, February 14, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

of the young woman conversing with Marty Kane in Luks’s Valentine’s Day identify her as just the type LaSelle disapprovingly had in mind. Uncontrolled passions leading to anarchy and loss of control find further emphasis in the pile of Valentines heaped in the street, a public thoroughfare whose access and function are disrupted. Beneath the feet of the Kid and Liz, a real act of anarchy occurs in the bonfire kindled by the gamin at lower left, while Buster the

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley masked anarchist ominously states, “Wait till it gits dark en I’ll open it.” ἀ e feared social instability is now made manifest. ἀ e public display of affection leads to chaos and the shocked expressions of Em and Jen. Meanwhile, Nelse the cop tries to prevent the postman from continuing his rounds. In Valentine’s Day, a news reporter jots down the story. His action is echoed in a billboard pasted on the alley fence urging readers to subscribe or risk missing an issue illustrated by a famous artist, a self-reference by Luks. In a second-story window, we glimpse the newspaper office with the editor himself at work. In his social history of American newspapers, Michael Schudson commented that a yellow press journalist was expected to be “a participant who spits on his hands, rolls up his sleeves, and jumps into the fight” (Duncan, 85). Luks situates his cartoon reporter in just this fashion, participating with the throng on the street, suggesting a link between participant spectatorship facilitated through his cartoon and the activism of journalists. ἀi s newsboy figures in no fewer than nineteen Hogan’s Alley cartoons, offering testimony to the interrelationship between marketplace culture, Luks’s self-consciousness as an artist-reporter, and the participatory journalism described by Schudson. ἀ e reporter’s salacious interest in recording spontaneous incidents of public affection underscores the public’s perception of the slums as a place given to wanton sexuality, loose morals, degeneracy, and vice. One of the more unsettling ways the freer sexual code manifested itself was through dance halls and clubs, a ubiquitous feature of East Side social life (Peiss, 89). Not only did men and women mingle freely in a manner previously forbidden in polite society, such social halls offered single working-class women new opportunities for intimate contact. Unlike the waltz, new dances encouraged couples to slouch and hold each other about the neck or on the hips (Ralph, 18). Among those most decried by reformers was the Cake Walk, whose jazzy rhythms originated in African American musical traditions. ἀ e scandal was so persistent that well into the twentieth century dance instructors Irene and Vernon Castle were at pains to distance their Castle Walk from grosser forms like the Turkey Trot or Bunny Hug (Castle and Castle, 103). Acquainted with similarly jazzy rhythms from his days as a blackface vaudevillian, Luks utilized the strutting postures and exaggerated manner of the dance in A Cake Walk in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, January 31, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4). Luks situates his cartoon in a dance hall, where a makeshift stage supports musicians and a singer holds sheet music titled “Nobody Knows How I Love

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley You.” Strutting on the dance floor, the Yellow Kid and his pals follow behind two grand marshals, either blackface performers or racially caricatured blacks. ἀ e exaggerated arch of the grand marshals’ backs mimics the gyrations of those dancing the Cake Walk, whose sensuous shuffle Luks accurately recorded in a monotype created in 1907. ἀ e forward thrust of the couple’s pelvises and their shuffling gyrations record a risqué posture contrasting with their formal attire. ἀ eir dress and manner parody white society and, by implication, the racial and social status quo. ἀ e Kid comments on the erotic subtext of the dance, proclaiming, “I wish Liz wuz a angel cake—Ide eat her—she’s en angel allrite! Allrite!” Unnerved by the dance’s sensuality, Nelse the cop growls. Within the dance hall, chaos appears imminent as kids steal wedges of cake and romp atop the table, and animals run loose. ἀ e presence of the alley goat—symbol of lust and uncontrolled passion—reinforces the sexual subtext. Sexual impropriety, lascivious dancing, and uncontrolled passions also constitute the setting of A Seeley Dinner in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, January 24, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4; fig. 4-4). While Outcault remained content to transport his Yellow Kid gang to Europe, where they engage in ever more improbable fantasies with royalty (Blackbeard, 78–88), Luks remained focused on New York, excoriating the real-life hypocrisy of high society. Within a secured private club, a banquet takes place before a stage, where twins Alex and George, characters invented by Luks, dance the hootchy-kootchy in diaphanous tutus. Kicking their legs high while proclaiming their ability to dance in the altogether, they invite comparison to a famous ecdysiast. A perusal of the hall reveals Little Egypt, a diminutive form waving a tambourine in the lower left corner of the picture, naked but for her long black tresses, to be that person. ἀ e licentious goat atop the table links the hootchy-kootchy and Cake Walk, and the animal’s punning use of the word “buck” establishes a further link with lowbrow culture.3 But police busting through the window interrupt the festivities, causing Mickey Dugan and Baldy Sours, his sidekick and another original Luks character invention, to flee. Pandemonium reigns as the reporter jots notes for his scoop and a news editor directs typists, allusions to the public appetite for salacious news. In December 1896the public was in fact focused on news of a morning raid at Sherry’s, a resort for younger members of New York’s four hundred (New York World, December 21, 1896, 1). ἀ e police acted on a tip that New York’s decency laws were about to be violated by the scheduled appearance of Little Egypt, sensational belly dancer of the 1893 Columbian Exposition and recent

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-4. A Seeley Dinner in Hogan’s Alley, New York World, January 24, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Broadway music hall sensation, whose gyrations coined the term “hootchykootchy.” On this occasion, Little Egypt was to appear at a private stag party hosted by Herbert Seeley. But during the raid, Little Egypt remained safely hidden, forcing Captain William Chapman to recall his forces after delivering a stern forty-five minute lecture to the startled guests. ἀ eir prominence and their protests at being detained led to an official inquiry before New York City’s Police Board and generated a string of nonstop stories: “Police Outrage

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley Say Diners” (New York World, December 22, 1896, 1–2), “Seeley’s New Plight” (New York World, December 23, 1896, 1–2), “To Air Seeley’s Party” (New York World, December 24, 1896, 10), and “To Probe Seeley Raid” (New York World, December 27, 1896, 5). A reporter interviewing Little Egypt received a firsthand demonstration of her performance, noting, “She wiggled like an eel and smiled and threw her arms back and raised her black veil and dropped it in a manner which showed her to be the genuine Oriental dancer she is reported to be” (New York World, December 31, 1896, 1). Little Egypt’s sworn affidavit raised the possibility that several diners, including Seeley himself, would receive indictments. During the protracted hearing, the World described the dinner in ever more lurid terms—as a “Pompeiian feast” (New York World, January 9, 1897), 1–2) and an “orgy” (New York World, January 10, 1897, 1–2)— and repeated verbatim the exotic dancer’s testimony (New York World, January 13, 1897), 1–2). Broadway theater impresario Oscar Hammerstein I staged a reenactment of the Seeley dinner at his Olympia Music Hall featuring none other than Little Egypt herself in the starring role. It is certainly probable that Luks attended Hammerstein’s tableau reenactment. In the lower right corner of his drawing, he depicts a pudgy boy holding out his hand for money while exclaiming, “I’m Oscar, the boy manager of Olympia Junior. Kum up en I’ll show yu a better show than this fur 50 cents.” Boarded up windows poke fun at police, who testified the club appeared deserted when they arrived at one o’clock in the morning. Turning to subterfuge, they waited until one guest slipped out, at which point they rushed the door, ran upstairs, and burst in upon the diners. ἀr oughout the Hogan’s Alley series, Luks depicts policemen as inept, corrupt, and enforcers of an oppressive moral code. It is significant, therefore, that as he raids the club, Nelse the cop states this act will serve him in good stead with Parkhurst, a reference to the crusading zeal of the noted Presbyterian minister Dr. Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842–1933), who campaigned against corruption and saloons and for moral reform. In his drawing, Luks portrays Nelse sporting enormous legof-mutton whiskers, the only instance in the Hogan’s Alley series where he is thus depicted. Nelse’s whiskers resemble those worn by the actual Chapman and recorded in Word drawings accompanying articles recounting the officer’s court testimony. Dubbed “His Whiskers” by Tenderloin saloonkeepers, the officer earned a hardboiled reputation for arresting innocent women on unsubstantiated charges of soliciting (New York World, January 22, 1897, 3). By portraying Nelse as similarly bewhiskered, Luks emphasizes Chapman’s self-

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley righteousness. Unless one considers Outcault’s contemporaneous parodies of European royalty as jibes at high society, to a far greater extent than he, Luks used salacious current events to broadly lampoon New York society and its social mores. Although current in informal English usage as early as 1840, the slang term “kid” soon acquired the more specific meaning of a skillful young thief and pugilist.4 And it is that very business that occupies Mickey Dugan and his pals in four cartoons. The Great Prize Fight in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, December 6, 1896, Comic Weekly Section) depicts the Yellow Kid refereeing a bout between Alex and George in a ring consisting of an upturned tub set up in the alley before a string of sheets suspended on poles. Boxing was a timely topic. Attempts had been made to legalize the sport in New York earlier that year, yet within polite society it retained the stigma of illegality alluded to in the anxious whispering of Liz, who notices Nelse peeking through the sheets and warns the Kid. Nelse is concerned about uncontrolled, rowdy spectatorship: Baldy Sours gets drunk on wine, a bookie lures kids to bet on the fight, a kid brandishes a pistol in his pocket and waves a wad of bills at three shocked girls, Buster the anarchist sits with dagger drawn and brick at hand to use when a fight breaks out. But Mickey Dugan has other ideas. Holding a stopwatch, he reassures the viewer, saying, “Youse needent fear, der wont be no bloes struck. Dis is none o’ yer fake fites. . . . I’m afraid dese kids have a yaller streak down dere backs.” ἀ e Kid’s remarks underscore the assumption that Alex and George won’t actually fight. ἀ e nicknames Korbet and Fitz reference two great boxers of the day, James J. Corbett and Robert L. Fitzsimmons. A native of San Francisco, at the age of eighteen Corbett won the championship of San Francisco’s Olympic Athletic Club in 1884.5 On his way to the heavyweight title, Corbett participated in a record marathon, going sixty-one rounds against Australian Peter Jackson on May 21, 1891. Gaining national attention with his victory over John L. Sullivan on September 7, 1892, “Gentleman Jim” Corbett, as he came to be known, subsequently spent the remainder of his career capitalizing on this triumph and did little further fighting. He appeared in two Broadway shows, made a boxing movie for Edison, and undertook a triumphant English tour. Corbett’s one great rival, Robert L. Fitzsimmons, a New Zealander, achieved boxing fame in Australia leading to a middleweight championship victory against Jack Dempsey in New Orleans on January 14, 1891. Fitzsimmons progressed to the heavyweight class, and on March 17, 1897, Corbett and Fitzsimmons fought a fourteen-round bout

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley for the championship, a fight won by challenger Fitzsimmons. As if following Corbett’s example, Fitzsimmons thereupon gave up fighting, appearing in vaudeville and in a Broadway play for two years. When Luks drew The Great Prize Fight, Corbett had not yet fought Fitzsimmons. But Fitzsimmons’s reputation as a smooth-talking, nonfighting bon vivant was discussed in a newspaper article headlined “Fitzsimmons Refuses to Meet World Challenger” (New York World, February 23, 1896, 2), and lampooned in an May 8, 1896, World cartoon (not by Luks) titled When Corbett and Fitzsimmons Will Meet, portraying them as wizened men with long beards and canes waiting in the ring as managers argue over details and a wall calendar bears the date April 1960. On September 19, 1896, the World reported that “Corbett is at his training quarters in Asbury Park, and Fitzsimmons is in Philadelphia, where he finishes a week’s theatrical engagement tonight.” Measured against this background, The Great Prize Fight assumes the stature of comic parody on the refusal of the two champs to fight and, parenthetically, the feared violence of slum society. Yet Luks undermines the potential for violence in the detail of wet laundry. A large sheet is inscribed, “Dere always talking about de prize belt. If I wuz a humon bein ide give dem a belt dey wouldn’t furgit so soon,” a sentiment reinforced in the inscription on a small towel shaped like a fighter’s wiping cloth hanging two garments away. A third towel proclaims what Marty Kane the alley fighter would do, contrasting Kane’s fighting spirit with the lack of grit on the part of Corbett and Fitzsimmons. ἀ e inversion between the actual world where boxing doesn’t take place and the fictive fighting spirit of Hogan’s Alley is completed in the words of the Kid’s nightshirt referring to himself as Tim Hurst (1865–1915), a pugnacious baseball umpire with a reputation for assaulting players with his fists, and by two onlookers, one of whom punches the other, exclaiming, “Take Dat—I’m sick en tired o hearin dos kids fiten. Lets do a litel talking.” Talk of an anticipated bout between Fitzsimmons and Corbett attracted Luks’s attention once more in his World cartoon for March 14, 1897, St. Patrick’s Day in Hogan’s Alley, appearing three days before the champions were to meet. Emphasizing the Yellow Kid’s disruptive behavior while lampooning New York’s most famous parade and Irish immigrants in general (grand marshal Hogan sports an apelike face), the setting also provides a foil to satirize once again the two Irish prizefighters, for tacked on the alley wall, a placard urges them to forget civility and “mix it up a bit.”

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley Luks tackles the purported penchant of tenement kids for thievery in A Ghost Séance in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, March 7, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), depicting a curtained enclosure set within the nocturnal alley hemmed in by tenement buildings. Within this draped space, fireworks shoot into the nighttime sky and grimacing masks poke their heads out, causing the panic-stricken children to flee. A gullible boy thinks a tentacled monster must be the devil. His fright is mirrored in the depiction of wide-eyed black children who slink along behind him. ἀ e fear induced in these kids has been orchestrated by Mickey Dugan, who, unnoticed, has momentarily drawn aside the curtain to reveal the ruse, gleefully remarking, “See how rattled Nelse is! He tinks dis is Roseyvelt!” Dugan’s remark draws attention to Nelse. Fright stiffens the hair atop his head, while the swiftness of his panicked retreat causes his hat to fly into the air. In mocking Nelse, Luks references the reform of New York City’s police recently undertaken by Police Commissioner ἀ eodore Roosevelt, who, upon becoming commissioner on May 6, 1895, transformed the Metropolitan Police Department from a perceived confederation of petty criminals extorting protection money from merchants and brothel owners into an efficient, modern law enforcement agency (Jeffers, 49–54, 71–130). Within two years, Roosevelt dismantled the boss system, earning wide public commendation. His public profile in spearheading reform led to his appointment in 1897 as assistant secretary of the navy under William McKinley. When the Kid jokes, therefore, that Nelse is rattled because the ogre resembles Roosevelt, he implies that Nelse’s fear is motivated by getting caught at extortion. And, in actuality, Mickey Dugan and Baldy Sours have engaged in a deceptive con game involving money. But at the last minute the impish Dugan turns the tables on Nelse, scaring him off by evoking the specter of Roosevelt. Luks completed his quartet of cartoons on thievery and pugilism with Hogan’s Alley Kids Go into the Milk Business in the Good Old Way (New York World, July 18, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4; fig. 4-5). As the Kid milks a cow, Liz stands ready with a pail, and Baldy Sours slakes his thirst. But the Kid is not actually milking the cow, since a trough leads from the bucket placed under the animal to a spigot attached to a tall container gushing milk. ἀ at container is connected to two others by means of a leaky hose, and graffiti scrawled upon it casts doubt on whether the liquid is genuine milk or some adulterated product. Concern is heightened because these two tanks are connected to yet another hose held by Alex and George, who claim to inspect the

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Fig. 4-5. Hogan’s Alley Kids Go into the Milk Business in the Good Old Way, New York World, July 18, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

product. A sign posts milk prices and appears straightforward until the bottom line: “Special rates fur milk fur de servants. It’s a dandy mixture.” What precisely is meant by “mixture” is unclear, as this is supposed to be pure milk. A second notice reads, “Try our boarding house milk. It looks like cream and would fool de star border.” ἀi s intent to deceive, the leaky hoses, the uncertain source of the cow’s milk, and Dugan’s own words confirm suspicions that an adulterated product is peddled here. Fear of cholera is underscored in the proximity of hoses to the ground as well as by the frolicking children coming into contact with spilled milk. Press articles repeatedly exposed conditions in “swill-dairies,” where cows fed on the slop until succumbing to disease.6 With an urban infant mortality rate averaging 50 percent of live births annually, physicians blamed unwholesome milk as the root cause. Only a decade earlier, New Yorkers consumed local produce. But the rise of food processing, refrigeration, chemical preservatives, and canning technology meant that consumers now had little control over production or knowledge about the source of their food (Law, 1105). ἀ e necessity of lowering infant mortality and ensuring a pure milk supply gained momentum in 1893 when Newark physician Dr. Henry L. Coit created the

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley Medical Milk Commission, which contracted with local dairies to obtain pure milk certifiable and labeled as such, thereby guaranteeing a safe product to urban consumers. Public outcry for pure milk spurred New York’s neighbors to enact laws regulating purity and production. New Jersey did so in 1886, Massachusetts in 1891, Connecticut in 1895, and Pennsylvania in 1897; New York would not do so until 1900 (Law, 1111).Luks’s cartoon pointedly references this situation. Hogan’s Alley Kids Go into the Milk Business presents an exceptional instance when Luks forgoes his customary undermining of public perceptions of the slums to underscore, through humor, the need for pure food laws. ἀ e growing popularity of organized sports provided further opportunity to comment on pugilism, evidenced in Training for the Football Championship Game in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, October 11,1896, Comic World Section, 3) and Baseball Practice in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, March 21, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), themes also pursued by Outcault (Blackbeard, plates 15, 48). But while both Luks and Outcault drew sporting cartoons that parody high society, Luks is more apt to use billboards and posted signs within his sporting cartoons as a means to underscore his intended social target. For example, in Outcault’s First Championship Game of the Hogan’s Alley Baseball Team (New York World, April 12, 1896, Comic Section, 3), signs advertise various products and allude to the world of commerce rather than any burning social issue. By contrast, in Luks’s Baseball Practice, where the Kid delivers a curve ball in the middle of a commandeered intersection to the surprise of the opposing team’s batter and the detriment of a local resident, whose windows are smashed by stray balls, a sign advises the gang to keep their professional training secret lest Yale refuse to play them. In Football Championship, Dugan cheers on his comrades as they fight for possession of the ball, and signs advertise the championship ἀ anksgiving contest between the Hoboken Pretzel Club and Hogan’s Alley. A notice posted on the fence enumerates rules prohibiting biting, kicking, scratching, throwing bricks, and weapons. ἀ e fine print, however, advises the kids to save these tactics for the “real” game, while a second sign notes Yale is afraid to play Pennsylvania but the kids of the alley have no such fear. ἀ e inclusion of Ivy League team names is no coincidence. By 1896 college sports occupied an important niche in the psyche of American males. A perceived antidote to a feared weakness threatening American manhood as a result of increased economic security, widespread availability of creature

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley comforts, the taming influence of religion, and the alienating circumstances of urban living, athletic prowess on the field came to play an increasingly vital role in Victorian male self-identity (Ladd and Mathisen, 52–53). ἀ e actions of the YMCA organized as an urban haven for Christian men displaced from rural, evangelical roots in promoting the “character-building” qualities of sport as a way for boys to remain steadfast and vital against city temptations provides but one telling response to the deeper anxieties underlying the athletics craze (Winter). Known as “Muscular Christianity,” this effort to link manliness and sport was particularly championed by evangelist Dwight L. Moody during the Businessman’s Awakening in 1885 (Putney, 2). ἀ e disorientating shift in male work environments caused by the growth of sedentary office jobs in impersonal corporate settings, so very different from the strenuous, physical work on family farms or in localized workshops, gave rise to the fear that middle- and upper-middle-class Anglo-Saxon businessmen were slowly, but inevitably, experiencing a sapping of their vital energies, which if unchecked, would supplant their social dominance with more active, aggressive immigrant and working-class people and helps explain the enormous appeal of Muscular Christianity and the growing craze for team sports (Putney, 4-5). Ivy League campuses, heretofore almost exclusively the prerogative of wealthy Anglo-Saxon Americans, became one of the principal arenas where organized athletics helped reassure elites of their continued vitality and dominance. Such expectations explain why Luks depicts alley kids making fun of Yale while simultaneously asserting their fearlessness in challenging any team. ἀ e bold words printed across Dugan’s nightshirt emphasize the Yellow Kid’s contempt for rule-bound Ivy League athletic contests in contrast to the rugged fisticuffs engaged in by the alley gang. ἀ eir willingness to break rules and go head to toe against all comers underscores their fierce determination and striving, a quality Luks determined to be preeminent in the slums (Baury, 399–413), yet a drive apparently lacking in Yale’s elite team afraid to play Pennsylvania. Both Outcault and Luks delighted in excoriating the mores and manners of the upper classes, often by having their respective versions of Mickey Dugan and his gang parody high society sporting events such as dog and horse shows. Examples include Outcault’s The Great Dog Show in M’Googan Alley (New York World, February 16, 1896, Comic Section, 8) and Luks’s A Genuine Horse Show in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, November 8, 1896, Comic Section, 5) and The Great Dog Show in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, February 21, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4). But in Luks’s cartoons, there is a further

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley emphasis upon disruption and chaos, the very antisocial elements reformers railed against and the upper classes feared. Whereas Outcault’s kids stand in a circle and chat, their make-believe clothes imitating ladies’ finery, Luks’s kids actively disrupt the public right-of-way and impede free access to city streets, as they do in Valentine’s Day and Baseball Practice. Two Luks cartoons parody the aristocratic sport of yachting: A Hogan’s Alley Boat Race (New York World, April 11, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5) and Hogan’s Alley Kids Have a Barge Party Down the Bay (New York World, June 13, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4). In Boat Race, teams of oarsmen, one representing Hogan, the other Brogan, and the third the Yellow Kid—with Liz towing Alex, George, Em, and Jen—compete off an East Side dock. ἀ e rowers struggle against ragtag sculls and lack of team coordination. Fearful that his boat might disintegrate, the Kid wears a life preserver while ungallantly admonishing Liz to swim. In Barge Party, the alley gang embarks upon a leisurely East River excursion atop a garbage scow as the Kid remarks that the ride will do them good save for the likelihood of having to bathe once the trip is completed. ἀ e absurdity reinforces the humor. By contrast, Outcault confines his satire to the rather tame activity of alley kids taking over a boating pond, as they do in Hogan’s Alley Folk Sailing Boats in Central Park (New York World, June 28, 1896, Comic Section, 6). ἀ ere appears to be only one instance where Outcault’s kids actually disrupt a public street, that being Golf, the Great Society Sport as Played in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, January 5, 1896, Comic Section, 6; Blackbeard, plate 9). But even in this case pedestrians can still pass by freely on the sidewalk. and the only ones affected by stray golf balls are the kids themselves.7 In 1897 World readers were accustomed to reports of boating events described as the leisurely pursuits of millionaires or Ivy League crew squads.8 Such articles preceded publication of the Boat Race and Barge Party cartoons by two weeks and surely provided fodder for Luks’s boating theme. His decrepit harbor settings are noteworthy given that on May 5, 1897, the World illustrated a story extolling the beauty, utility, and scale of the new East River Pier Promenade, which was capable of accommodating 10,000 people while affording an unobstructed view of the river. In stark contrast to the elegant yachts and waterfront accommodations described and illustrated in the World, the Hogan’s Alley kids uncomfortably cram atop rickety, deteriorating wharfs, where they are ordered to move on by Nelse the cop. Given this hostile attitude by cartoon police, one can’t help wonder if their real life counterparts

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley would similarly rebuff East Side gamins congregating at the new Promenade and whether Luks suspected this would be the case as he refined his composition in this cartoon series. Both Luks and Outcault treat the theme of bicycle racing, but with significant differences in approach. Outcault’s The Bicycle Meet in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, June 21, 1896, Comic Section, 3; Blackbeard, plate 23) has the kids racing upon conventional bicycles in one direction toward a defined finish line. ἀ e only oddity is Mickey Dugan’s bike tethered to a dog. But in Luks’s The Hogan’s Alley Bicycle Tournament (New York World, May 16, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), the sensation of chaos is paramount since the children ride a host of jerry-rigged contraptions. Dogs and goats power some. Alex and George ride tandem. Even the alley goat peddles a high-wheeler, while one girl maneuvers a three-wheeled cart and a boy rides an impossibly high bike requiring a rear-mounted ladder to reach the driver’s seat. While the kids in Outcault’s cartoon trip or are harassed by the crowd of bystanders, they remain focused on racing in unison toward a presumed finish line. But in the Luks cartoon, absolute pandemonium reigns as cyclists cut each other off, cross paths, or ride in opposite directions. One girl appears to have lost half her bicycle, while Buster threatens to puncture the tire of another. Baldy Sours daringly shows off by playing an accordion above his head while letting go of the handlebars. By the 1890s cycling had grown from an activity enjoyed by the wealthy to a popular middle-class hobby. Newspapers featured lengthy stories on the riding craze (New York World, April 26, 1897), 9), the number of weekend cyclists on roadways (New York World, April 5, 1897), 4), the best routes (New York World, April 11,1897, 34–35), and the latest bike designs (New York World, February 12, 1897, 8). ἀ ey also remarked on the newfound mobility cycling offered to ordinary city dwellers previously limited to walking or traveling on crowded trolleys. Freedom and mobility engendered social change, especially for women able to rid themselves of confining clothing, to travel without a chaperone to places previously unknown or off limits.9 More so than in Outcault’s more conventional drawing, this suggestion of breaking convention and exploring all options unrestrained by limits underlines Luks’s Hogan’s Alley, where chaos and lack of conformity predominate. ἀ e public dread of chaos, the much-feared result of tenement squalor and overcrowding, impelled many social reformers to agitate for improved living conditions for the poor. In How the Other Half Lives (1890), Jacob Riis urged

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley wealthy Christian landlords to purchase model tenements while holding profits to 5 percent. Such conscientious personal philanthropy would foster moral self-improvement on the part of the landed classes while upholding bourgeois values concerning proper respect for wealth and social hierarchy (Strange, 5). Luks detested reform and social controls undertaken as faith-based initiatives, as was the crusade for Prohibition and moral reform led by Dr. Charles Henry Parkhurst, pastor of Madison Square Presbyterian Church and president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime. ἀ ough Parkhurst was instrumental in preaching against the power of Tammany Hall, a campaign culminating in the election of a reform mayor for New York City in 1894, his support for Prohibition made him fair game. A Masquerade Ball in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, November 15, 1896, Comic Section, 4) provided the bibulous Luks an opportunity to lampoon Parkhurst’s vehement Prohibitionist stance. Behind a crowd of costumed revelers frolicking in the alley, large signs proclaim “De Grandest Annual Mulon-Hamerstein Kafe Chanton Maskeerade Ball,” and note none other than Baldy Sours “will be done as Dr. Parkhurst.” Baldy’s disguise is so perfect that Mickey Dugan explains in a note that the hesitancy of the kids to uncork the wine is due to their belief that Baldy, dourly standing alone behind his sour-faced mask, really is Parkhurst. As if to challenge the preacher, a grinning jack-o’-lantern looms over an adjacent sign, proclaiming “Hurray for wine, womens and song de hole life long, and longer.” When Luks drew Santa Claus Held Up in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, December 13, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 5) and Holding Up the Ice Cart in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, August 1, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5; fig. 4-6), he also may have recalled Parkhurst and New York City’s reform mayor. In these cartoons, far from condemning gang violence, Luks presents robbery as an instance for humor and fantasy. If it is true that the image of urban America in turn-of-the-century comics alternated between the trope of the city as gritty reality underlying all moralistic illusions and the locus of wish fulfillment for its resident consumers (Westbrook, online), then Luks’s Santa Claus powerfully references this and in so doing deflates the moralizing sermons of men like Parkhurst and Riis. In these images, the graphic violence of masked pirates pointing pistols at a startled Santa is undermined by the Yellow Kid waving his popgun, thereby proving the weapons to be fake. ἀ e Kid reassures St. Nick, and his words are echoed by Buster standing on a drum before Santa’s face admonishing him, saying, “Don’t be skeered. I’m only foolin.” ἀ e fantasy is compounded because the kids are accosting Santa

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-6. Holding Up the Ice Cart in Hogan’s Alley, New York World, August 1, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Claus. Neither the violence nor the person to whom it is directed can be taken at face value. Because of this, the dynamics of the cartoon shift from the trope of the city as gritty reality to the city as locus of wish fulfillment. To the extent these kids receive everything they desire for Christmas through their disorderly act, their violence becomes the agency for fulfilling their market-driven wants. In short, they act like myriads of middle-class New York shoppers who participate in the consumer culture heavily promoted by department stores and mass-advertising. If Santa Claus negates tenement violence, Holding Up the Ice Cart in Hogan’s Alley presents a believable scenario yet undermines gang activity by stressing numerous acts of kindness, revealing the essentially good-heartedness of the kids. Alex and George feed a shaggy dog a chunk of ice, and the mutt gratefully laps at the cool block. Another child hefts a frozen chunk up to the thirsty draft horse. Even the Yellow Kid smiles disarmingly as he takes pity on the child hooked on an ice scale. Humorous antics of other children reinforce these compassionate deeds. Appearing in August, the drawing would have occasioned an immediate response from any New Yorker familiar with the city’s stifling summer heat.

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley Without air-conditioning and refrigeration, all classes suffered. Yet while the rich could escape to Newport, and the middle classes to Coney Island, the poor sweltered and endured as best they could. Reform literature reported the phenomenon of tenement dwellers sleeping on rooftops, a subject depicted by John Sloan. Luks engages us at the far more visceral level of collective memory in a shared and pleasurable experience, the childhood joy of licking and savoring cooling ice on a hot summer day. In so doing, he mitigates the violence while endearing his readers to these rambunctious kids. ἀ ere are, however, two incidents that pull one back to reality. Justice is served when Nelse nabs Buster, one of the few instances in this cartoon series when the police succeed in imposing order. But even here, the slang term “pinched” can be taken literally and therefore rendered comically ineffectual. ἀ e other detail is subtler. Baldy Sours peers into a barroom window. Reformers considered saloons to exert pernicious influences on tenement children (Odegard, 40–59). Yet Luks certainly detested temperance, boasting of an incident from childhood when, as a store clerk, he experienced his first bout of heavy drinking (Perlman, Immortal Eight, 57). And he continually admonished Everett Shinn over the latter’s teetotaling habits. In what is arguably one of his most famous paintings, The Spielers, Luks warmly depicted two East Side children dancing in the street, presumably outside a music hall where liquor flowed freely (Peiss, 88–89).10 Given his pro-alcohol sympathies, it appears unlikely that Baldy’s action in Ice Cart indicates a moral scruple on the part of Luks vis-à-vis kids and alcohol. Upon closer inspection, we observe that Baldy studies a broadside posted in the saloon window referencing popular music halls. Luks would seem to suggest a connection between the spontaneity of the kids in Holding Up the Ice Cart and their good-humored, chaotic behavior in Continuous Performance. If so, he once more renders harmless an instance of social chaos and downplays the opprobrium of social reformers. Interestingly enough, this disarming of cartoon violence and the implied empathy for the spontaneous slum kids it suggests seem to be a viewpoint not shared by Outcault. In Outcault’s What They Did to the Dog Catcher in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, September 20, 1896, Comic Section, 4), the kids brutally attack the man who lies prostrate upon the ground as he is pelted with a barrage of stones and bricks, pummeled with sticks, and kicked about the head as his wagon is set ablaze. In Luks’s entire Hogan’s Alley series there is only one cartoon, a tentative early effort, Hogan’s Alley Attacked by the Hoboken Pretzel Club (New York World, May 31, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 8),

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley where gang violence seems malicious, as the Hobokens proclaim their intent to clean out the alley. Yet even here they appear ineffectual, as one kid wears an inverted iron skillet atop his head and their leader is clad in a barrel, his head surmounted with a tuba, and no actual violence occurs. Luks’s Hogan’s Alley gang does, however, manifest antisocial behavior, on occasions marking public spectacle and subverting order and decorum because in so doing they undermine notions of proper bourgeois manners and suggest alternative modes of being. Hogan’s Alley Folk at the Aquarium (New York World, July 7, 1897, Comic Section, 4) depicts the kids running amok during what was intended to be an edifying, educational experience. ἀ e notice hanging from the balcony confirms that the building is closed to the public during this field trip. Yet it is not the alley kids but the native-born who are now excluded. Since there are no outsiders present, the kids behave as freely as they would on their home turf, where fish are not exotic creatures but food to be eaten. Several throw fishing lines into the tank or grab the tails of exotic species with disastrous consequences. One has stripped off his clothing and jumped in for a swim, while another seizes the opportunity to do laundry. Baldy Sours applauds as Marty Kane punches a shark in the snout. Hungry kids prepare a fish fry. Nelse the cop appears out of place as he plunges into the tank and clubs a fish for telling a lie. Mickey Dugan holds aloft a jowly looking fish with beady eyes, large snout, and recessive jaw, quipping about its similarity to Talmage. ἀ e reference is to T. DeWitt Talmage, pastor of Brooklyn’s Central Presbyterian Church known for his preaching and showmanship, whose syndicated sermons in over 3,000 American newspapers attracted hundreds of followers. As measured by period photographs, Talmage’s profile does resemble the fish held up by the Kid, and the comic reference deliberately parodies the Brooklyn preacher, whose sermons against drunkenness, gambling, and debates with Robert Ingersoll over agnosticism marked him as a Luks target. When Luks drew this cartoon, the Castle Garden Aquarium had newly opened. Within walking distance of East Side tenements, it became an attractive leisure option for family outings, far more accessible than the trek uptown to reach Central Park. ἀ e day before the public opening, the Park Board president invited the board of aldermen, the commissioner of accounts, the supervisor of the city record, the president of the board of education, and the deputy commissioner of public works to a gala aquarium luncheon (New York World, December 10, 1896, 14). ἀ e guests arrived to an aquarium vestibule

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley lined with police holding fishing rods, bait, and tackle that were offered to the diners, who thereupon angled in the tanks for their dinner. ἀ e contrast between legally sanctioned fishing by society gentlemen assisted by ranks of police and the ensuing pandemonium of Hogan’s Alley underscores assumptions of class behavior operative in public environments. Similarly, in Hogan’s Alley Kids at Hogan’s Baths (New York World, May 30, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), the kids cavort around the bathhouse, diving off the dock and from the roof, while Nelse tries to stop their fun by locating the plug to release all the water, as if the locale were one colossal bathtub. ἀ e gang displays contempt for authority by hurling bricks and shoes at Hogan, who passes by the dock with his contractor’s cart. In Hogan’s Alley Folks MayDay Visit to New Jersey (New York World, May 2, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), alley kids subvert the scripted pageantry by marching in a circle rather than alternately weaving in and out to entwine the pole ribbons, as Mickey Dugan engages in his own subversive act by plowing up the park. An orderly, supervised hike ends up becoming a tangled route to nowhere in Hogan’s Alley Kids in the Mountains (New York World, June 6, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4). Such disruption echoes concerns of social reformers on the need to create urban conditions conducive to a “moral renaissance” capable of uprooting vice while inculcating standards of civic virtue among the masses. Reformers proposed a doctrine known as positive environmentalism, elevating the moral character of slum dwellers by transforming conditions of their lives through parks, playgrounds, and wholesome recreational pursuits (Boyer, 179). Jacob Riis chaired Mayor William Lafayette Strong’s Small Parks Advisory Committee, advocating playgrounds to combat “tendencies to vulgarity, dissipation, and immorality in the cities” (Boyer, 181).ἀ e model became the Great White Way, erected for the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Depicting a classically inspired environment of canals, fountains, gleaming buildings, and, above all, order, the lesson in urban design it offered was not lost upon reformers. Even Jane Addams championed positive environmentalism, declaring that the delicious sensation of urban swimming pools would outweigh the temptation of inner-city youth “to play craps in a foul and stuffy alley” (Addams, 494). And one might agree that a country outing or a playground ought to be preferred to the crammed and unsanitary conditions depicted in Hogan’s Alley Kids Have a Fishing Party on an East Side Dock (New York World, July 4, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), where the kids amuse themselves amid piles of teeming refuse, except for the fact that far from appearing miserable,

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley they thoroughly enjoy themselves. Outcault’s alley kids display a similar sense of gleeful abandonment in similar situations. ἀ e children’s contentment prompts one to seek alternative explanations for this concerted push for recreational change in the 1890s. A desire to provide wholesome play underlay a deeper social concern to control behavior lest the energy of the uncontrolled masses spill over into chaos and class violence. In reform literature of the Progressive Era, including Edward A. Ross, Social Control (1901); Charles H. Cooley, Human Nature and Social Order (1902); and Simon Paten, The New Basis of Civilization (1907), control is the operative notion (Boyer, 225–232). In New York City, the positive environmental movement achieved its first noteworthy success in 1894 with the decision to raze Mulberry Bend, a notorious crime-ridden Lower East Side neighborhood featured in How the Other Half Lives, and replace it with a park. ἀi s new urban green space was completed in 1897, the very year Luks drew In the Mountains, May Day, and At the Aquarium. Yet no sooner were parks created then advocates agitated for further intervention: to function effectively as agents for social control, parks required persons to supervise the activities occurring there. In the wake of heightened urban unrest following economic hard times between 1893 and 1897, New York increased park budgets, with the hope that structured, supervised recreational opportunities would shape urban moral character and temper the urge to raucous, disruptive social behavior on the part of underemployed urban masses (Boyer, 242–243). Riis’s photograph of children engaged in organized athletic demonstrations published in The Battle with the Slum (1902) seemed at the time to offer a kind of visual corroboration of the correctness of positive environmentalist claims. Contrary to such ideas, Luks thought the slums needed no makeover. People of the slums were fine just as they were, perfectly capable of working out their own solutions and able to get ahead because of their desire to strive for success and uplift, ideas he presented in an interview given to Bookman in 1911 (Baury, 399–413). It is not surprising, therefore, that the kids of Hogan’s Alley, whether visiting an aquarium, cavorting in a park, the baths, or in the New Jersey countryside, far from respecting externally imposed codes, blithely manifest a keen disregard for rules and circumvent them at every opportunity, manifesting the very energy and vitality reformers hoped to instill in them in the first place. Luks’s discernment of these qualities would soon lead him to paint East Side children with a wonderfully sympathetic brush.

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-7. A Wild West Show in Hogan’s Alley, New York World, May 9, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Luks’s quintessential social-outing cartoon, A Wild West Show in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, May 9, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4; fig. 4-7), depicts a grandstand of rowdy kids cheering as the Yellow Kid and his pals stage their show. Wearing oversized sombreros, Alex and George ride miniature burros and jump over hurdles, while Marty Kane awkwardly rides a burro and several alley kids manhandle Hogan’s business partner, Brogan, disguised as an American Indian. ἀ e hapless Hogan, identified as Sitting Bull, receives equally

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley cruel treatment. ἀi s derogatory depiction of Native Americans appearing in the context of a Wild West Show commercializing and debasing plains culture must be frankly acknowledged, a commonplace in cartoons of the era (Fischer, 71) and an attitude previously commented upon in several drawings made for Puck and Truth. ἀ e main attraction of the show, however, is not American Indians but an enormous buffalo. ἀi s exotic animal makes an instant hit with the kids, who slide down its back hump and pull its tail. Despite this, the animal appears remarkably docile. Dugan’s explanation reveals the animal to be a well-inured zoo specimen having long forgotten its natural ways—so much so that even a small dog yapping nearby spooks him. ἀi s disquieting disjunction reflects the unnatural circus environment constituting for most Americans the context within which they encountered western life. Along with scenes featuring a train robbery, American Indians attacking settlers, and outlaws attacking and burning a cabin, bison hunting was a reenactment featured during Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. ἀ e violent nature of these tableaux constituted a vicarious thrill for audiences, who could experience the rough frontier at a safe distance while knowing that such scripted performances produced a happy and predetermined ending affirming the triumph of Anglo culture and values. Such a dichotomy constituted a particular cultural moment in the America of the 1890s. Frederick Jackson Turner’s seminal thesis on the West as a now-closed frontier that once functioned as a safety valve to siphon off discontented urban masses received its first public hearing at the American Historical Association in 1893. It is unlikely that Luks, whose taste in literature tended toward eighteenth-century British fiction, noticed the debate among historians. But American popular culture was saturated with dime novels popularizing a new hero: the western cowboy, whose origins in American lore are traceable to the Leatherstocking tales of James Fenimore Cooper (Smith, 51–120).Within this new genre, the fictional Deadwood Dick and the real-life Buffalo Bill Cody assumed leading roles. ἀ eir most important traits were a lack of upper-class rank, skills at riding and shooting, attractiveness to women, and an uncanny ability to overcome all enemies by dint of gritty self-determination (Smith, 100, 102). Cody’s life as a plainsman differed little from that of dozens of other cowpokes, save in his natural gift for self-promotion aided by the pulp fiction writer Ned Buntline, who exaggerated the tales related by Cody to the point where an apotheosized “Buffalo Bill, King of the Border Men” became

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley the model for authentic western types (Smith, 104). Potentially wicked but tough as steel, fundamentally honest and used to hard knocks, the western cowboy exemplified by Cody mirrors the character traits of Mickey Dugan and the Hogan’s Alley gang. Cowboys may be rowdy, but in acting with grit and self-determination they prove the resiliency of the American spirit. ἀi s same resiliency Luks discovered among the urban, immigrant kids of the East Side and Baury described in Bookman. It is a spirit quite unlike the ideal propounded by adherents of the progressive environmental movement. Luks seems to suggest that the frontier survives in the rough-and-tumble reality of slum kids, who strive with a grit and determination every bit as genuine as their frontier counterparts. And like those now-tamed western folk, these urban kids embody a potential hope in the future. ἀ e battle over style and purpose in America’s recreational habits was joined at Coney Island. Cody’s touring show, in fact, concluded with a fiveweek run at Coney Island in August 1883 (Immerso, 35). In the 1880s development of the island was a work in progress. While distinctive island zones had been carved out—Manhattan Beach in the east for the wealthy, Brighton Beach located at midpoint for the middle classes, West Brighton where working classes thronged—reformers still hoped to mold the shape of amusements. In 1884 La Marcus ἀ ompson introduced a new ride, the Switchback Gravity Railway, prototype of the modern roller coaster (McCulloch, 307–308). ἀ ompson’s novelty quickly received competition from two others, signaling the transformation of West Brighton into a fantastic playland filled with speedy mechanical contraptions, gaudy colored lights, cheap food, and casual dance halls. ἀi s development coincided with the rise in employer acceptance of the Saturday half-holiday (Immerso, 41). Increased leisure time fed demand for cheap mass entertainment. Yet instead of journeying to the seaside to commune with nature as reformers hoped, workers gravitated toward the noise and thrills of West Brighton. ἀ e subject also attracted Outcault, who drew The Residents of Hogan’s Alley Visit Coney Island (New York World, May 24, 1896, Comic Section, 6), presenting them as strolling the famed midway. But in The Yellow Kid Takes a Sunday Off at the Seashore—Captured by the Artist Just in the Act of Entering the Midway (New York World, July 8, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5; fig. 4-8) and Hogan’s Alley at Old Coney Island Once More (New York World, May 23, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), Luks hints at the deeper complexities posed by Coney Island’s existence. In Entering the Midway, Dugan, jauntily decked

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-8. The Yellow Kid Takes a Sunday Off at the Seashore--Captured by the Artist Just in the Act of Entering the Midway, New York World, July 8, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

out with Panama hat, walking stick, and a large cigar in each hand, escorts his sweetheart, Liz, along the boardwalk. ἀ ey stop before a booth to purchase tickets for one of the dance halls. ἀ e vendor’s gaping maw, red nose, low-set hat, and gaudy horseshoe stick pin emphasize his role as a skilled hawker prying money from the hands of working-class patrons. ἀ e Kid is followed by a menagerie of animals as well as Alex and George, who hope to con their way in by posing as animal trainers. In the background, a cab has just arrived from the city bearing the Kid’s luggage, an indication of Dugan’s intention to stay at one of the many resort hotels. But a sign posted on the beach advises customers of the charms of la belle Fatima and her beguiling blue eyes, providing a hint at the real reason for the Kid’s early arrival. Fatima’s Cooche-Cooche Dance was the title and subject of a notorious 1896 Edison movie. ἀ e exotic dancer first appeared at the Chicago Columbian Exposition and thereafter at Coney Island (Musser, 131–132).11 Soon numerous imitators, playing upon male fantasies of orientalism, performed the highly erotic Danse du Ventre on stage (Carlton, 51). ἀ e headlining of Fatima’s blue eyes in the sign appearing in Entering the Midway indicates Luks’s awareness

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley of the popularity of such hired dancers. ἀ e beach at Coney Island offered an additional opportunity for both men and women to model daring bathing attire and socialize in ways nearly unimagined a decade earlier. Men hiked women on their shoulders, women felt little inhibition at kicking up their legs in the surf, and everyone mingled freely. Hogan’s Alley at Old Coney Island references this sense of abandon as Mickey Dugan strips off his yellow nightshirt to reveal bare thighs and knobby knees. Liz, Em, and Jen shriek and run away at the sight, much to the amusement of the Kid, who acknowledges that while he’s no Apollo Belvedere, he’s not a reckless Steve Brodie either.12 Other kids abandon themselves to the crashing waves. ἀ e notion that the seashore should serve as an antidote to city life, enabling the working masses to decorously contemplate nature, is utterly abandoned as even Nelse the cop jumps into the sea and fends off a boy for control of a wave. By contrast, Outcault’s Mickey Dugan (Blackburn, plate 21) stands forlorn, drenched by the sea, and a majority of the kids simply sit or stand along the shore. While Dugan’s tunic offers a comment on the presidential election, Outcault seems to have remained unaware of or unconcerned about the deeper social impact posed by Coney Island. All Fools’ Day in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, March 28, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4; fig. 4-9) and An Easter Egg Party in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, April 18, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 5) further present the holiday theme. In All Fools’ Day, at a busy intersection demarcated by the Hen and Gus Green Grocers, kids run riot as they play practical jokes on passersby. A boy pins a note onto the back of an unsuspecting gentleman dressed in top hat and frock coat. Nearby, an elegantly attired bourgeois couple sashays down the street. ἀ e man has become the victim of several jokes: a note pinned to his top hat informs us he’s crazy, another invites anyone passing by to kick him. But the coup de grâce will be the exploding firecracker a kid has affixed to the man’s umbrella. Another boy throws the bait of a wallet onto the sidewalk at the gentleman’s feet. In front of the Green Grocers, a fourth prankster has placed a sign advertising free food atop a bin heaped with vegetables chomped by the alley goat. Mickey Dugan plans a reverse joke by placing a board up the back of his nightshirt while attaching a sign asking to be kicked. At far left, Nelse the cop threateningly waves his baton at a young boy caught in the act of defacing the front of a barbershop. ἀ e elegant, promenading couple is the focal point of the cartoon. ἀ eir strutting posture, so different from that of the gangly kids, and their attire, a

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-9. All Fools’ Day in Hogan’s Alley, New York World, March 28, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

stark contrast to Dugan’s nightshirt or Baldy’s hand-me-downs, mark them as outsiders. Because of this, the kids single them out for ridicule. Period photographs reveal that the woman’s clothing is based on styles of the era, marking her as fashion conscious. ἀ e same cannot be said of her husband, who is dressed in an outmoded manner.13 Yet he is none other than Hogan, the don of the alley, recognizable in his unmistakable face prominent in other Hogan’s Alley cartoons. When the kids play jokes on him, they are not simply engaging in pranks on an anonymous passerby. Rather, they challenge and rebel against the social hierarchies of the alley that allow Hogan to prosper while they remain in poverty. What has brought Hogan wealth? Evidence within the cartoon provides an answer. Plastered on the sidewall of the Green Grocer’s shop, a broadside

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley announces the grand opening of Hogan and Brogan’s and states the two men will soon be “getting thick” and will open a business. A slang term for acquiring financial assets, “getting thick” in this context means Hogan is opening a grocery store. Everything, the sign advises, will be cheaper, and great bargains will be had. Significantly, they will no longer conduct business at the old stand. ἀ e broadside announcing this impending change alludes to an important means of social mobility for immigrants. With little capital, a pushcart could be purchased and an open-air stall set up along a street. By a combination of very hard work, scrimping, and luck, pushcart peddling might serve as the entrée for acquiring sufficient capital to purchase and open a legitimate grocery store and move up the social hierarchy. But the rise in status represented by the grocery store business was not without social consequences. Storeowners kept fixed hours, maintained firm prices, stocked standard merchandize, and were subject to city health ordinances, and many grocers regarded unregulated pushcarts as unfair competition, actively petitioning the city for their removal (Ward and Zunz, 287–312;Zurier, Snyder, and Mecklenburg, 148–150). Such actions posed a direct challenge to the continuance of the democratic style of commerce marked by haggling over prices and the complex network of neighborhood relationships between pushcart vendors and consumers. Moreover, customers could touch, inspect, and sample merchandise rather than view it behind counters or within the more confined and perhaps intimidating space of a grocery store. Vendors were not far removed from the society of their customers, frequently speaking the same language or dialect and sharing the same tenements as their patrons. It is understandable, then, why the kids react negatively to Hogan. In opening a grocery, he challenges the social dynamics of the alley, rupturing any sense of ownership or control the kids have about their neighborhood. ἀ e Hogans’ attire offers visual proof of their aspirations. and the impending change in the neighborhood is made worse by the fact that one store, the Hen and Gus Green Grocers, already exists. It becomes the legitimate target for April Fools’ pranks as the alley goat is let loose to graze in the vegetable bin. An Easter Egg Party reiterates this message. Pandemonium reigns as Alex and George collect eggs and Alex smashes one into the palm of Mickey Dugan, embarrassing the Kid in front of Liz and Baldy Sours. Buster threatens to steal away the eggs after nightfall, and several kids hurl them at Hogan. Bedecked in Easter bonnets, Jen and Em look on as another urchin steals an egg from a child’s backpack. One alley dog holds an egg in its mouth, while another

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley expresses a wish that Easter could happen every day because the abundance of eggs makes it a fattening occasion. Oblivious to the action, Nelse the cop dozes against a tenement wall. Almost unnoticed in the middle distance, a young boy prepares to fill a basket with eggs from an outdoor grocery counter. Affixed to the wall behind Liz and Baldy, a sign reminds consumers that Easter comes but once a year and urges advance purchase of a sufficient supply of eggs. Such promotions were typical of grocery stores dependent on maintaining a regular volume of business, rotating stock, and touting their sanitary conditions. Pushcart dealers, on the other hand, had no reason to advertise and little need to worry about last-minute crowds, as the very nature of their business depended upon on-the-spot same-day purchases. A misspelled notice tacked up near the eggs obviates this difference by reminding slum dwellers what they know instinctively: it is better to wait until after Easter when unused eggs may be cheaply had, the very type of secondhand produce unloaded by grocery stores but frequently restocked by pushcart vendors. Furthermore, the sign advises that secondhand eggs are available simply by going “down to de market.” By not specifying a named grocery, the sign implies the familiar open-air pushcart market known to everyone. ἀ e allusion to class tensions is given bolder play in a double cartoon, A Wedding Party in Hogan’s Alley and The Departure of the Wedding Party from Hogan’s Alley (New York World, April 27, 1897), where readers are treated to a glimpse of the Hogan family parlor, a respectable, “lace curtain Irish” environment, in which a wedding reception is held for Hogan’s daughter. Mrs. Hogan stands behind the dining table fussing with food, while her husband voluminously occupies an overstuffed settee. Prince Nitdough sports a diminutive crown atop his head as he looks on and smiles at the Hogans’ daughter seated before the piano. Dugan addresses the prince, warning him to treat his fiancé properly or face the wrath of Hogan and his money, while the alley kids hold aloft a sign urging the prince to grab Hogan’s dough. In the accompanying Departure, a near riot erupts as the bridal carriage is pelted with rice and a steady stream of shoes and bricks, spooking the horse and knocking the coachman unconscious and forcing Nelse to wield his nightstick to reimpose order. ἀ e play on words in the prince’s name—nit being slang for not, hence signifying lack of money—is a brazen satire upon American millionaires securing their status by marrying off eligible daughters to titled but less wealthy English aristocracy. Public skepticism over the extent to which love motivated such unions and the corresponding rapt attention with which the

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-10. Thanksgiving Day in Hogan’s Alley, New York World, November 22, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 4. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

public devoured news of such events constitute the underlying social context for the Luks cartoon. ἀ e chaos verging on violence in Departure is not unlike the mayhem the kids perpetrate against the Hogans in All Fools’ Day or An Easter Egg Party as a warning against their rising ambitions and status climbing. ἀ at the Hogans are obviously Irish and presumably Roman Catholic in an era when the Irish were predominantly manual laborers in America underscored for readers the scornful nature of this parody.

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley ἀ ere are several cartoons where Luks expresses decidedly anti-Republican sentiments, a viewpoint that would catch the attention of Alfred Lewis and lead to the artist’s next assignment as illustrator on the Verdict. Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley cartoons also treated political issues and follow the party line taken by Pulitzer’s paper in lampooning the free silver stance of Democrats. Outcault preferred to draw crowds of kids marching in parades or attending election rallies in which their placards and posters carry anti–free silver messages.14 On August 2, 1896, cartoons by Outcault and Luks appeared on the same page of the World, both lampooning the enthusiasm of populists for free silver. But Luks’s cartoons are, on the whole, more brazen in their attacks against bigmoney Republicans. An outstanding example is Thanksgiving Day in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, November 22, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 4; fig. 4-10). Within a shack, the kids prepare to enjoy a holiday feast, with Dugan presiding over the turkey carving. Luks emphasizes the racial and ethnic diversity characteristic of the East Side and the disruptions that ensue as kids scramble to dig into pies, munch on celery, steal a taste of cranberry sauce, and press about the table as the Yellow Kid prepares to carve. ἀ eir lack of manners is mirrored in the animals chomping on greens or lapping at milk. It is possible to interpret Thanksgiving Day as a comical fantasy played upon American traditions by virtue of the fact that a gang of perpetually hungry kids prepares to indulge in a meal impossible under normal circumstances. Even the bloomers hanging on the line underscore the fantasy, as their inscriptions poke fun at sanitary reformers. And as in Bargain Day, Luks subverts Outcault’s rival cartoon by including a scroll hanging from the shed roof inscribed “He’s his mudder’s boy, Hogan’s Alley’s pride en joy. Oder Yaller Kids dan he, are fakes en imatashuns, See!” Yet if Thanksgiving Day delights in disorderly humor, it also makes direct political comment. On the rear wall are several signs referring to the act of reading carefully. One depicts rampant lions using a literal and visual pun to admonish reading between the lines. ἀ e other shows a pair of thick glasses lost in the Astor library, a reference to seeing clearly and doing research. Two inscriptions remain. ἀ e longer one states, “Wots de use uv ἀ anks when ders no guy a givin, see. I tink dat dis ἀ anksgivin biznes should reed thanks taken, and den where are yu huh?” ἀ e message reflects Luks’s feeling that ἀ anksgiving is a sham because the feasting masks the lack of everyday charity by robber barons who advance their own interests while giving nothing in return. ἀ e second inscription confirms this: “Dats a genuine Turkey Mark Hanna give us dat we don’t eat no crow.”

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley A euphemism for regret and humiliation, “eating crow” is both literal and metaphorical. ἀ e kids can enjoy a feast and won’t go hungry thanks to Mark Hanna, who has charitably supplied them with turkey. But the turkey also refers to the recently contested 1896 presidential race won by Republican William McKinley because of generous financial backing from Hanna. ἀ e dominant question in that bitter campaign concerned free silver.15 In 1873 the Grant administration made gold the sole standard for the nation’s currency. But when a severe economic depression struck, western silver miners saw the value of ore plummet and joined forces with farmers in seeking debt relief, pressuring Congress to remonetize silver at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one of gold. A compromise bill, the Bland-Allison Act, backed by bankers and business interests, passed the Congress in 1878 and reestablished both silver and gold as legal tender but permitted redemption of dollars only in gold. When a second panic ensued in 1887, farmers and silver interests agitated for relief, resulting in a second compromise, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, obligating the government to purchase western silver but at market rates. When a third financial panic gripped the country, eastern business and banking interests aligned with the Republican Party and had the act repealed in the summer of 1893. Farmers and urban workers blamed business interests and backed Democrats who supported unlimited coinage of free silver, pitting the Democrat Williams Jennings Bryan against the Republican William McKinley in the election of 1896. As a wealthy banker and railroad magnate, Marcus Hanna supported McKinley, raising nearly $3,500,000 f or his campaign. ἀ e campaign of 1896 proved a boon for cartoonists. Republican-leaning William Allen Rogers of Harper’s Weekly drew at least six pro-McKinley cartoons culminating in Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving for the November 28, 1896, edition. Rogers depicts a grateful Uncle Sam bending appreciatively over an open oven door, where Miss Liberty tends a steaming turkey whose aromas spell “sound money restores confidence, opens factories, revives business,” offering vivid approval of McKinley’s recent victory. Allen’s drawing style is as conservative and conventional as his message. But Luks presents a strong anti-Hanna message in his freewheeling comic style. ἀ e Hogan’s Alley turkey provided by Hanna is compared to eating crow. ἀ e kids’ grammatical lapse of speech inverts the intended meaning confirming that Hanna’s turkey (McKinley) is a sham and bad things will result. One of these supposed evils is class warfare. Rogers had alluded to this in his Hell Broth cartoon in the October 10, 1896, edition of Harper’s. But in the Rogers cartoon, it is Bryan

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley who stirs the cauldron of class hatred by supporting free silver. Luks reverses this conceit. In his cartoon, directly below the word “crow,” a map on the wall depicts the country of Turkey and the enclave of Armenia, a reference to the genocide beginning to take place there. Luks implies that Hanna’s turkey (McKinley) is actually the cause of class hatred. And the Hogan’s Alley stove confirms Luks’s support for free silver in a missing rear leg propped up by a brick conspicuously labeled “not gold” as a kettle simmers with the words “this is a pot boiler.” One final comment reinforces the anti-Hanna message: a large patch sewn on the turkey’s breast bears the inscription, “ἀi s ain’t a patch on wot we will do.” ἀ e patch alludes to a nineteenth-century vote-buying scheme also depicted in Rogers’s Only a Bait in Harper’s Weekly (August 17, 1895), where ἀ omas C. Platt, leader of the New York State Republicans, is shown early in the presidential nominating process manipulating the outcome by offering candidates watermelon laced with alcohol, indicated by triangular plugs on each melon. Overindulgence on the spiked melon will leave only boss Platt standing at the end and ensure his control of the nomination.16 Thanksgiving Day was drawn after the election results were known. But a few weeks earlier, with the outcome uncertain, Luks pilloried boss politics in A Hot Election Day in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, November 1, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 1). On the same day in the rival New York Journal, Outcault poked mild fun at the choice facing voters by having the gang from McFadden’s Flats elect both McKinley and Bryan to the presidency. In comparison to Outcault’s lighthearted jest, Luks’s cartoon exposes the dirty side of the 1896 election. In the Luks drawing, a victory parade also takes place. Heading the procession is the GOP elephant. But the symbol is a fake, its trunk a hole-worn sock placed over a goat’s snout, its tusks goat’s horns wrongly positioned. Liz sits in a box on the creature’s back, but the inscription on her chair reveals her preference for the Yellow Kid and Democratic hopeful Bryan. Signs of political corruption abound. A kid offers glasses of lemonade to passersby, the magnanimous gesture a ploy akin to the spiked watermelon of Only a Bait, as indicated by the word “nit” and by inscriptions on adjacent kegs showing them to be stuffed with cash. One boy claims to be Mark Hanna and holds a large barrel of rocks he intends to use in a mud-slinging campaign. ἀ e alley’s clear favorite, the Yellow Kid, is borne aloft to the cheers of the crowd. If boss Hanna thinks he can sway this crowd, the alley kids have their own ideas.

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-11.President-Elect McKinley Visits Hogan’s Alley, New York World, November 29, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 5. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Mickey Dugan addresses the assembled mob, making a sly jab at Hanna and other big business interests who backed McKinley and favored intervention in Cuba. ἀ e Kid also proves adept at political organizing as the padded final tally reveals him polling over three trillion votes. As an ultimate demonstration of loyalty, the crowd hangs a banner proclaiming Queen Liz and King Dugan, who in his acceptance speech denies his vote and voice are up for

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley sale. ἀ e Kid’s use of the slang word “nit” contrasts his ultimate scruples with Hanna, who, having raised $3,500,000 for McKinley, would soon exert powerful influence in the White House. Following McKinley’s win, Luks drew President-Elect McKinley Visits Hogan’s Alley (New York World, November 29, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 5; fig. 4-11),a cartoon blending the requisite patriotism with commentary on the new president’s obligations to his financiers. McKinley is stiffly posed in formal, dark attire surrounded by a crowd of demonstrative kids. Familiar from campaign posters and photo drawings in daily newspapers, the president’s stiff wooden appearance and Victorian reserve are rendered incongruous amid the squalid surroundings of the alley, especially since he maintains this demeanor while walking hand in hand with Dugan and cradling the twins Alex and George in his right arm while Buster scampers beneath his feet and Liz nestles at his right side. ἀ e irony of a flesh-and-blood individual appearing two-dimensional and false while fictional characters take on human qualities is not accidental, for unlike McKinley, the Yellow Kid is not perceived as a flat, dark mass. ἀi s dichotomy leads one to postulate that although McKinley is now president and the anti–free silver forces victorious, with respect to Hogan’s Alley, the president and his policies do not fit into the picture. ἀ ere are two additional flat areas in the composition that hint at what is wrong. ἀ e Kid’s yellow nightshirt is one of these, the text asserting the Kid’s readiness to act as McKinley’s sly confidante, like ἀ omas Collier Platt, Republican congressman of New York (1873–1877), Republican state party machine politician, and two-term senator (1897–1909). As Republican kingmaker, Platt’s ability to manipulate people would soon become legendary after he engineered Roosevelt’s nomination as vice president on the Republican ticket in 1900. However, the Kid’s remark that he’ll give Platt cards in spades poses a direct challenge to the senator’s deal making. Dugan’s swaggering confidence, coupled with his hand-in-glove chumminess with McKinley, makes the Kid a power broker in his own right. Political deal making is made explicit in the upper left, where a boy proclaims himself Mark Hanna, another declares his intention to be appointed secretary of the navy, a baker states his hope of profiting from political office, an African American child expresses a wish to become minister to Liberia, and the alley parrot squawks about talking to office seekers. ἀ ese details hint at McKinley’s indebtedness to his supporters, leaving him with few genuinely disinterested friends.

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-12. A Cuban Filibustering Expedition in Hogan’s Alley, New York World, January 17, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Luks equally focused on an issue soon to dominate McKinley’s first term: Cuba, lampooned in A Snowball Battle in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, December 20, 1896, Comic Weekly Section, 4) and A Cuban Filibustering Expedition in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, January 17, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4; fig. 4-12). A Snowball Battle depicts gangs pelting each other and rolling up mounds of snow to hurl down upon the opposing camp. ἀ e Yellow Kid, Liz,

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley the alley goat, and the news reporter kid stand at center. ἀ e child reporter acts as official front-line war correspondent, that boundary demarcated by barriers including a wall of snow, a picket fence, a phalanx of tenements, and an icicleencrusted roof atop where the armed enemy prepares to rain missiles down upon the alley invaders who struggle to breach the barriers. ἀ e action could be taken as an elaborate game played by energetic children. Yet the sophisticated nature of the fortress, coupled with the reporter’s reference to war, raises questions whether the cartoon might represent something more. Luks locates signs within the picture to indicate its deeper meaning. Outcault employed this device as well in two Journal cartoons of March 14 and 21, 1897. But at the time he drew these, his alley gang was embarked upon a grand European tour, and since the cartoons focused upon the gang’s antics in various European cities, his pro-Cuban sentiments were limited by this circumstance. On the other hand, Luks could take advantage of the Hogan’s Alley setting and growing anti-Spanish sentiment of the American public to directly reference current events. An example is a sign in his cartoon highlighting the Spanish word trocha, a term meaning a line of fortifications constructed to prevent passage of an enemy across a region. Spanish forces were then erecting just such a bulwark throughout the Cuban countryside to prevent rebel forces under Antonio Maceo from moving freely across the island. In response, insurgents set up their own barricades designed to cripple the Spanish regime by depriving it of sugar plantation tax revenues. Luks remembered such fortifications from his employment with the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. In one Evening Bulletin drawing of February 3, 1896, titled A Village Barricade, he specifically drew a barricade that mimics in many respects its counterpart in his Hogan’s Alley cartoon: both include multiple lines of defense and culminate in the high-pitched roof from which to assault the struggling enemy below. ἀ ese parallels indicate Luks’s intention to clearly reference Cuban warfare, made explicit in the Yellow Kid’s words, “Dis is de battul uv me life. Wait till you sea us go true dat trocha. Dem kids ill tink Im Maceo de Cuben.” Only a month after drawing A Snowball Battle, Luks created A Cuban Filibustering Expedition. ἀ e contrast with Outcault’s approach is again evident. A year previously, on March 15, 1896, Outcault’s The War Scene in Hogan’s Alley appeared in the World. In that cartoon, although the kids are lining up as volunteers, the signs they carry are more anti-British than anti-Spanish, perhaps an allusion to the sentiments of the alley’s purported Irish dwellers but resulting in ambiguity. In Luks’s A Cuban Filibustering Expedition, political

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley comment is again more pointed, for the alley gang awaits their mission while equipping a makeshift craft to sail for Cuba. Although one boy boasts of training his guns on the Spanish palace and the rainmaker puns that the Spanish pretender Alfonso won’t reign long, another continues to straddle the fence, bluntly stating his preference to stay home. ἀ e word “filibuster” in this context refers to the expedition’s clandestine nature, for filibustering commonly referenced covert smuggling of war supplies and matèriel by American sympathizers and Cuban expatriates, although the threat of discovery by Spanish spies and vigilant activity by the U.S. Navy made filibustering risky business (Morgan, 250). Luks, then, belittles the violation of U.S. neutrality laws while at the same time calling into question any precipitous action by the American government. ἀ e sign on the fence lauds the brave leadership of Mickey Dugan, Alex, George, and Nelse. But Dugan’s tongue-in-cheek title, Y.K. of H.A. (Yellow Kid of Hogan’s Alley), lampoons his status. ἀ e supposedly brave Nelse chases a phantom boogey man, while the twins appear as doll-like midgets rather than warriors. ἀ e Yellow Kid compares his prowess to the notorious General Valeriano Weyler, Spanish governor of Cuba whose reconcentrado policy segregating peasants into enclosed camps became a focal point of American opposition to continued Spanish rule. Yet Weyler’s imposing stature evidenced in official photographs strongly contrasts with the Kid’s gangly pose, accentuated by his nightshirt and ill-fitting hat. ἀ e Kid’s big ears and cheeky grin mark a further contrast with the machismo so evident in Weyler and belie Dugan’s claim to leadership. Two final details at lower right and left of the picture reinforce the notion that such expeditions may be precipitous. A munitions box bears the warning to handle with care. Yet the message is undermined by the name of the intended recipient, General Housework. And a gamin ignites a bomb only to acknowledge that he is pretending. By inserting such details into his drawing, Luks seems to suggest support for Cleveland’s advice to defer action on the Cuban question, a notion reinforced in the antiwar cartoons he would soon produce for the Verdict. Luks unambiguously took on the topic of New York City politics, and he brazenly poked fun at the boss system. Outcault’s cartoons on this theme are more indirect. He preferred to show the effects of corruption (The Yellow Kid Inspects the Streets of New York [New York Journal, October 10, 1897, Comic Section, reproduced in Blackbeard]) and hinted at the influence of money (The Crowd Gets Up an Election Bonfire and the Yellow Kid Plays Nero [New York Journal, November 7, 1897, Comic Section, reproduced in Blackbeard])

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley but mentions no names. But the mayoral election of 1898 offered Luks a prime opportunity to call the bosses out, and he took full advantage of the situation. ἀ e consolidation of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island into Greater New York on January 1, 1898, afforded him an opportunity to create cartoons lampooning the high-stakes mayoral contest. Four candidates vied for the office, presenting voters an opportunity to unseat the entrenched political machines of Tammany Democrats controlled by Richard Croker and Republicans controlled by Senator ἀ omas Platt. Having served two terms as mayor of Brooklyn, Seth Low (1850–1916) brought to his candidacy a strong record of civil service reform. As a result, although a Republican, Low failed to secure the support of Platt, who viewed reform as a mark of disloyalty and Low as insufficiently pliant. Platt engineered the nomination of General Benjamin F. Tracy (1830–1915) for the Republican ticket, and Low thereupon accepted the nomination of the reform Citizens Union Party (New York World, October 7, 1897, 1–2).Tammany supported Robert Van Wyck (1849–1918), a native New Yorker and chief justice of the City Court of New York (New York World, October 7, 1897, 1–2). Van Wyck’s support for free silver and Bryan during the presidential campaign, coupled with his party’s pledge to place the street rail system under city control and repeal the Raines law restricting Sunday liquor sales, ensured his popularity among the working class. But anti-Tammany Democrats broke ranks to support Henry George (1839–1897) on the Democratic Alliance ticket (New York World (October 3, 1897, 4). George previously campaigned as the Independent Labor Party candidate in an unsuccessful attempt to win the 1887mayoral race. Although losing, he garnered votes from social reformers, the middle class, and labor leaders who backed his proposal for a single tax, and these groups continued to support his 1897 candidacy, threatening to split the working-class vote. Commenting on this state of affairs, Luks drew New York’s Most Popular Citizen, the Sunday World’s Yellow Kid—How Would He Do for Mayor? (New York World, October 3, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 1; fig. 4-13), depicting a sassy Mickey Dugan stumping upon a platform wearing his characteristic nightshirt. A derby rests jauntily atop his head, while a smoking cigar protrudes from the dirty toes of his right foot. Dugan’s cockiness is accentuated by his akimbo pose and the outstretched fingers of his right hand manipulating two wheelie toys, a Republican elephant and the Tammany tiger, implying that boss Platt and boss Croker are no match for his craftiness. ἀ e glaring visages of Platt and Croker scowl from their gilded frames at this upstart who

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley

Fig. 4-13. New York’s Most Popular Citizen, the Sunday World’s Yellow Kid--How Would He Do for Mayor? New York World, October 3, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 1. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

threatens their control. Dugan’s cash-stuffed pocket underscores the influence of money. ἀ e Kid also tucks a feather duster representing Republican operative and Platt quisling Lemuel Quigg under his arm. Other World artists, particularly C. G. Bush, chief illustrator for the newspaper, drew caricatures of Quigg as a court jester to King Platt, a satire confirming the universal disdain with which the World art staff regarded him. ἀ e Kid further manifests his political mastery through Alex and George, who carry a palanquin hung with

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley Democratic and Republican effigies. Dugan’s sassy speech and talk parody claims made by various candidates. With a four-way contest splitting party loyalties, Luks suggests the Yellow Kid’s popularity as measured by the World’s circulation would enable him to win election as mayor of Greater New York. ἀ e following week, Luks drew The Yellow Kid’s Candidacy for the Mayoralty of Greater New York—He Attends a Conference of Leaders at the Fifth Avenue Hotel (New York World, October 10, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4). In the week just past, the feeling grew that campaign cash and back alley deals would stifle change. On October 4 the World reported that the discontented Tammany executive committee urged Croker to induce the resignation of Van Wyck. On October 5 the World headlined its poll showing Van Wyck garnering twice as many votes as Republican nominee Tracy, with both outstripping Seth Low and Henry George. On October 6 the World reported the gap separating Van Wyck and Low had narrowed to 2,000 votes, with George gaining rapidly. Yet again on ἀ ursday the World reported how Democratic Alliance candidate George surpassed Platt’s candidate to garner 26 percent of the poll vote. By week’s end, Van Wyck still led the tally, with 33 percent of all voters sampled, but the two reform candidates were running neck and neck and gaining fast. Yet Tammany’s seeming control remained vulnerable as evidenced by a rankand-file revolt against Croker’s nominees at the county level, forcing the boss to abandon his entire slate of county candidates in the interest of securing support for Van Wyck (New York World, October 8, 1897, 1). Enormous voter registration turnout on Saturday offered further proof of the importance New Yorkers placed upon the campaign. Given these political shifts, one can understand why Luks highlighted the jockeying for power while underscoring the potential for corruption and influence peddling by placing the Kid front and center, maximizing his stature while enhancing his visibility, much like real-life politicians clamoring for attention. Behind closed doors, a nominating committee shouts support for various candidates, indicating the split in Republican ranks. Signs of influence peddling cover the lobby wall, and Dugan looks every bit the rogue politician. A plaid hatband encircles his jaunty derby, while his bulging pocket betrays the influence of money. At the last count of cash—not votes—the Yellow Kid leads by fifty cents. Dugan feigns outrage to a reporter’s question about what platform he supports, while the failure of the old-time bosses to completely control events is again spoofed in the representation of Quigg as a feather duster resting idly against the wall. In The Little Nippers’ Candidacy for the

Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley Mayoralty of New York They Have a Quarrel Over the Campaign (New York World, October 24, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4), Luks referenced the city’s decaying roads, as Outcault did weeks earlier in the Journal. But Luks adds a direct political reference in his cartoon. ἀ e squalor is evident in the mudfilled street, where an open trench, loose bricks, a wooden bulwark, and a cast-iron sewer pipe become the spontaneous playground for alley kids clamoring about the construction zone. Without equipment, laborers, or construction signs, the work site looks abandoned. ἀ at abandonment reflects the idle promises made by Van Wyck, who four days previously released to the press a copy of his platform decrying the surrender of city roadbeds to contractors and corporations and the gross corruption that resulted in deteriorating streets and schools. In The Little Nippers’ Candidacy for the Mayoralty of New York, the kids cheer a fistfight between Alex and George because of an attempted backdoor deal with boss Croker. ἀ e political fallout threatens both their candidacies. Watching from the sidelines, the Yellow Kid cheers, for such a public display can only help his candidacy. ἀ ese divided political loyalties mimic the increasingly tense situation in the closing weeks of the actual mayoral campaign. On October 10 the World reported rising tensions within the George camp over the action of ἀ omas Johnson, a free trade and free silver politician who, having taken charge of the George campaign, secretly crafted a deal securing support among countylevel officials of the Citizens Union Party for the George ticket in exchange for support by the George campaign for the Citizens Union candidate for district attorney. A day later, labor officials, formerly strong supporters of George, publicly protested against Johnson’s influence over the ticket during a boisterous shouting match that disrupted the Central Labor Union political rally. In the very same edition, the World carried a story of a defensive alliance between Platt and Croker. ἀ e thought of a covert alliance between rival political machines was sensational news to many reform-minded New Yorkers. Yet even this paled when, on October 14, news broke of President McKinley’s public endorsement of Tracy. Meanwhile, the legality of Seth Low’s candidacy, challenged in court by Platt, was declared valid, and he surged in the World’s polls on October 18. When Luks produced The Little Nippers’ Candidacy for the Mayoralty of New York, only nine days remained until the election, leaving him but one final opportunity to comment on the state of city politics, which he did in The Little Nippers Stuff the Ballot Boxes and Elect Themselves Mayor of Greater New

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Gilded Age from Other Side of Tracks: Hogan’s Alley York (New York World, October 31, 1897, Comic Weekly Section, 4). Within a derelict lot, a polling station has been erected. Piles of paving bricks and a large sewer pipe link this drawing to that of the previous week. Nelse stands guard over the voting booth, but as he looks away and yawns, Alex and George stuff the ballot boxes for themselves. Although a sign tacked above the polling station proclaims no bribing or intimidation is allowed, it also suggests support for Alex and George, and it becomes clear that the cops are in collusion with the twins. Off in the distance, the Yellow Kid gloats over the corruption, hopeful of his own victory once the vote rigging is exposed. ἀi s cartoon reflects news headlines in the final week of the campaign and fears that party machines would prevail. On Tuesday evening Henry George lashed out at both Republican and Democratic bosses: “I look upon Platt as just a plain thief, as a blackmailer and a corruptionist; a man who is in politics for precisely the same purpose that Croker is, and who has been guilty of substantially the same practices” (New York World, October 17, 1897, 1). In response, Croker demanded George prove his charges in court, knowing evidence would be hard to come by and that George could not afford to squander vital campaign cash. Platt refused to respond. ἀ e attacks intensified the following day, reaching fever pitch by Friday. George relentlessly continued attacking the bosses, Tammany put out the call to attack George, while Seth Low continued to gain in the polls (New York World, October 29, 1897, 2). But late Friday evening the unimaginable occurred. Henry George suddenly died. As the World proclaimed George a martyr in the fight against bossism, it simultaneously endorsed Seth Low (New York World, October 30, 1897), 1). Yet on November 2 Tammany’s Van Wyck secured victory by winning the votes of labor and holding solid in the old Tammany districts. While the news dismayed Luks, he soon found a new, more creative outlet as principal illustrator of the Verdict. ἀ e drawings he made for this journal are among the most handsome he ever produced, and politically his most radical. ἀ ey demonstrate the myriad ways Luks transformed his assignments into creative forums expressing liberal convictions.

Chapter Five

Politics and Sarcasm Sandburrs and the Verdict

By December 1898 George Luks began to tire of newspaper work. Although Hogan’s Alley freed him from cranking out pictures to accompany sensationalized press articles, drawing the strip also constrained Luks to repeat the character originated by Richard Felton Outcault, limiting the freedom to explore his own artistic style. No doubt Luks’s turn to oil painting in works like The Amateurs and London Cabby further whetted his appetite for exploring alternative modes of expression. For a brief period in 1898 he found an outlet illustrating Alfred Henry Lewis’s book Sandburrs, a compilation of short stories first published in that year.1 ἀ e successful, if temporary, partnership forged between author and artist proved sufficiently satisfying for Lewis to offer Luks a coveted role as illustrator for the Verdict early in 1899, and he jumped at the opportunity. In publishing Sandburrs, Lewis sought out Horace Taylor and Luks to provide drawings. Taylor received top billing on the frontispiece and contributed ten ink wash drawings out of sixteen illustrations appearing in the volume. ἀ e HT monogram in the corner of each work easily identifies his contributions. Of the remaining six, only one contains the initials GBL. ἀ at drawing, T. Jefferson Bender Had Played Skylight, depicts a dapper young gentleman in [ 177 ]

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict a suit, vest, bow tie, and Panama hat standing with his hands in his pockets before the counter of a pawnshop. Behind the counter a short, stubby, balding clerk with bushy sideburns and thick spectacles over a hooked nose, stereotypical cartoon physiognomy for Jews discussed in chapter 2, examines a pocket watch, as another peers from behind a partition. ἀ e areas surrounding the figure are accented in vertical hatch marks, as are the faces of all three men. ἀ e drawing accompanies a short story, “A Tip from the Tomb,” relating the fate of the aspiring physician T. Jefferson Bender, from Kentucky, with a weakness for horses and gambling. At the track one day, a terrible accident befalls a jockey, and, wanting to be of assistance and prideful of his career, Bender jumps over the rail to revive the man. In gratitude, the jockey whispers a tip, “play Skylight,” despite twenty-to-one odds. ἀ e story concludes with the scene Luks illustrated: “ἀ at night, T. Jefferson Bender stood in a pawnshop. . . . T. Jefferson Bender was dusty and footsore. He had walked from Morris Park, and was now about to pawn his watch for food.” Assuming the remaining five unsigned works are by Luks, they show a progression from the conservative, hatch-line technique visible in Skylight to a more fluid drawing aesthetic employing areas of gray washes set off with white highlights. ἀi s technique ideally suited the demands of magazine illustration and allowed for more emotional expression than the simple black-andwhite of newspaper pictures. ἀi s freer application may have resulted from Luks’s collaboration with Taylor on the book project yet also recalls the technique occasionally explored in drawings for Truth as early as 1893, including Meditations on an Ancestor (Truth, April 8, 1893, 4) and One of Many (Truth, November 18, 1893, 3). A common thread links the drawings to the stories in Sandburrs: their sardonic quality hinted in the preface, where Lewis defined the book title as “a foolish, small vegetable, irritating and grievously useless.” Taken alone, each story comprises a mere four or five pages. Yet the paucity of text belies the ironic and memorable plot twists. Whether Lewis directed Luks to illustrate specific stories or allowed him to select the tales himself, Luks invariably illustrated pivotal moments, and those selections reveal much about his understanding of the power of irony to move the reader and of the power of an image to evoke strong emotions, qualities serving him in good stead when illustrating the Verdict. A prime example of an ink wash drawing is found in Give Him Milk, Mrs. Burr, Milk! (fig. 5-1) for the story “Gladstone Burr.”2 ἀ e scene depicts Burr lying prone upon a sofa, his head tilted to his right side with eyes closed

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict

Fig. 5-1.Give Him Milk, Mrs. Burr, Milk! 1898, photogravure illustration from Alfred Henry Lewis, Sandburrs, between pages 130 and 131.

and propped upon an enormous pillow. At Burr’s head stands his anxious and proper wife, her primness indicated by her high-collared bodice accented by white ink highlights, hair neatly combed and piled back on her head. ἀ e cloth-covered parlor table in the center of the room, the pianoforte in the background, and a frilly shaded oil lamp resting nearby upon a pedestal

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict further hint at the domesticated Victorian environment. In the right background a second man, sporting a Vandyke and holding a straw hat in hand, turns to address the woman while hastily exiting. Among the details, Luks also included a tall glass of milk resting on the parlor table, a pivotal item upon which the irony of the story will turn. Much of the drawing is executed in broad washes of gray with white highlights, darker tonalities comprising the piano and the man’s jacket. In this artful manner, Luks composed a drawing where key details underscore the principal actors, revealing traits of character at a climactic moment, for in the course of the story Burr is revealed to be a Brooklyn industrialist married to a strong-tempered woman with whom he normally gets along until “the barriers of his nature . . . at intervals give way,” causing him to drink heavily. At such moments, Burr resolves either not to return home unless too drunk to hear his wife’s admonitions or else to stay away until completely sober. But as this latest binge required Burr to absent himself for three full days to recuperate, he now devises a scheme to avoid his wife’s wrath. Enlisting the aid of a friend to pose as a doctor, Burr concocts a story that he suffered apoplectic sunstroke during the previous three days’ heat wave, is all right now, but requires three days rest. Burr’s wife, completely fooled, inquires if her husband should take any medicine, to which the sham doctor responds in the title words of Luks’s drawing, “Give Him Milk, Mrs. Burr, Milk!” ἀ e story both turns and concludes on the next line of text: “At the end of three days Gladstone Burr was almost dead.” Luks, no doubt, relished the story’s ironic humor, where a regimen of force-fed milk, rather than the vast quantities of liquor consumed, nearly kills the protagonist. He certainly was at great pains to craft his design so that the milk glass appeared in the center of the composition. ἀ e overall ironic tone of Lewis’s book may have provided an enticement for Luks to accept the commission. His liberal attitude on social issues, evidenced in Hogan’s Alley, and his willingness to use humor to present his views also may have been a prime influence upon Lewis when choosing Luks to illustrate Sandburrs and subsequently more important commissions for the Verdict. Financed by millionaire banker Oliver H. P. Belmont, the Verdict aimed to replace Puck as the leading national journal, espousing mainstream Democratic thought by offering hard-hitting editorials attacking McKinley and the Trusts, pillorying Marcus Hanna and Republican financial interests, condemning American adventurism in the Caribbean and Pacific, and advocating popular democratic causes such as a low tariff. Belmont

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict lavished resources on this enterprise. Each issue of the Verdict boasted an illustrated front cover, a two-page chromolithographed centerfold, a back page embellished with a multipanel color cartoon or drawing, and numerous illustrations designed to accompany articles throughout the journal. Luks became a regular contributor to the Verdict commencing with issue number three of volume one on January 2, 1899. Luks’s salary on Pulitzer’s New York World had been partly determined on the basis of continuing the Hogan’s Alley series. Everett Shinn noted, “Once he [Luks] pictured for me . . . the huge salary he was receiving for his work. While his right hand was busily engaged building up one of the [Hogan’s Alley] characters . . . his left hand drew accurately, barrel after barrel piled high up the left margin in pyramidal form labeled with dollar signs . . . then over and down as his arms crossed while still more barrels fell on the right hand margin. . . . When the barrels could fall no further he shifted his hand and signed his name as the right hand traced a plaid vest on the yellow kid” (Shinn, 14). When Luks ceased drawing this cartoon, he forfeited much of his visibility and notoriety. Furthermore, the avowed political nature of the Verdict—aiming as it did to surpass Puck—certainly touched a sympathetic chord in Luks, who well remembered his father’s compassionate assistance rendered to the clandestine miners’ organization, the Molly McGuires. Luks’s anti-McKinley views evidenced in Hogan’s Alley accorded well with the philosophy of the Verdict’s editor and boded well for a harmonious working environment. In an era when most American journals espoused political partisanship, it is difficult to believe that Luks simply shelved his personal opinions for the sake of a job. If that were the case, he could have sought employment with Judge or even the more conventional Life. If Luks did not share in some essential way the liberal views of Lewis and Belmont, one would have to conclude that he acted in an entirely cavalier manner, championing causes of the Left in which he did not believe while secretly espousing conservative views. Yet what is known of his language, dress, the company he kept, and the liberal views of his associates Sloan and Henri—all these facts agree with a picture of a man who was socially liberal, unorthodox, and antiestablishment, and support the contention that the political content of the Verdict cartoons mirrored at some fundamental level Luks’s own outlook. He certainly saw this position as an opportunity for his work to be measured against and surpass in popularity that of Joseph Keppler and of his son Joseph (Udo) Jr. (1872– 1956), leading illustrators for Puck, chief rival of the Verdict.

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict ἀ e aesthetic Luks devised for his Verdict drawings is directly linked to the liberal political purpose they served. As a new periodical, the Verdict needed to stand out from its competition. Success depended upon sales, and to generate those the magazine needed to be both eye-catching and readily distinguished from other magazines. ἀ e availability of color presses aided this task. As a result, Luks’s Verdict covers often comprise the entire front of the magazine, with a few figures boldly outlined in fully saturated color the better to be easily grasped at a distance and instantaneously “read” as to intent and content. Subtlety is abandoned in favor of broad caricature often borrowed from the physiognomic distortions popularized by other leading cartoonists of the day, such as Homer Davenport. A similar format is repeated in the magazine’s centerfolds. Unlike Hogan’s Alley, the clarity of the drawing is not compromised by text. Captions and titles are brief and confined to the bottom of the page, where they reinforce the satiric message of the drawing. ἀ e Verdict drawings cluster around ten themes with minor variations. Chief among these are Marcus Hanna and the Trusts, U.S. imperialism, the election of 1900, Tammany Hall, political corruption, public transportation, illustrations for feature short stories on the theater, sports, generalized cartoons, and occasional comments on race, religion, and the business of journalism. Luks’s initially timid foray into political satire appeared on the back cover of the January 9, 1898, Verdict. Featuring a paunchy Father Knickerbocker in colonial garb shaking a finger at Uncle Sam while complaining vociferously, “I’ve been expanded by the Republican party, Uncle, and I don’t like it,” the drawing references creation of Greater New York on January 1, 1898. Similarly, Luks presents a catalog of portraits of New York City politicians filing to their respective offices in city hall or the halls of Congress in On the Quarter Deck of Democracy (Verdict, March 3, 1899, 9–11)and New York City’s Delegation to the Fifty-sixth Congress (Verdict, February 13, 1899, 10). His most singular contribution are caricatures of Marcus Hanna and, by extension, the Trusts and American imperialism. ἀ e earliest Hanna satire is a full-page color illustration for the back cover of the Verdict (January 16, 1899), Cleveland’s “Great and Good Friend” (fig. 5-2), subtitled, Scene at the White House When Ex-Queen Liliokalani Appears with Her Bills. ἀ ough Hawaiian, the queen’s appearance conforms to well-rehearsed cartoon stereotypes of African Americans and ill accords with refined images cultivated in royal photographs, underscoring the viewpoint that annexation of alien lands threatened to dilute the national character with peoples ill equipped to

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict

Fig. 5-2. Cleveland’s “Great and Good Friend,” Verdict, January 16, 1899, back cover. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

function in a democracy. Planting herself before the front door of the White House, Liliokalani holds a wicker basket under her left arm while rapping on the door. Claims of $1,000,000 for Crown lands, bills for a scepter and crown, and assorted other documents overflow the basket. Prominent among these is a letter of introduction from Grover Cleveland to be presented to William

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict McKinley, current occupant of the White House, and his campaign financier, Marcus Hanna, shown peeking out an adjacent window, surprised by this unexpected visitor. Luks’s satire comments on imperial expansion beyond the contiguous borders of the continental United States. Between 1893, when the United States invaded the Hawaiian Islands, deposed the monarchy, instituted a provisional government, and attempted annexation, until the time he left office in March 1897, Cleveland refused to acquiesce to expansionist demands, relying instead on the recommendations of the Blount Commission.3 With the election of McKinley, however, a new treaty of annexation was signed and sent to the Senate for ratification. Hawaiian sovereignty formally transferred to the United States in a ceremony at Iolani Palace on August 12, 1898 (Daws, 270–292). When Luks did his drawing five months after annexation, the consequences were just beginning to be realized, as the Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish-American War also led to the acquisition of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Guam. It could not have been lost upon Luks that a chief reason McKinley won the White House was due to the political machine and financial backing of Hanna, and it became a prime aim of the Verdict to denigrate the millionaire and his pro-expansionist beliefs at every turn. In Luks’s cartoon, the close proximity of McKinley and Hanna’s bodies, their identical formal attire, and similarly bemused expressions evidence McKinley’s dependence upon his benefactor. Hanna’s face appears rotund with fleshy jowls, beady eyes, wispy sideburns, pendulous earlobes, and balding head, a grotesque caricature of his actual appearance. A mega-karat jeweled stickpin gleams from his shirtfront, setting Hanna apart from the more sedate McKinley while connoting his millionaire status. Designed to provoke laughter, Hanna’s caricature sets Luks’s parody apart from the work of Joseph Keppler, who had been the leading cartoonist for the rival journal Puck. While no stranger to parody, Keppler retained a portrait likeness to the faces of the characters he ridiculed even in his most famous cartoons, Forbidding the Bans (Puck, August 25, 1880) and The Cinderella of the Republican Party and Her Naughty Sisters (Puck, October 13, 1880). Contrastingly, Luks relies more on a French tradition of graphic satire evident in the work of Honoré Daumier (1808–1879)made familiar from Robert Henri’s informal talks at his Philadelphia studio. Daumier’s depiction of Louis Philippe as Gargantua (La Caricature, December 1831), presenting the king as a grotesque, pear-shaped behemoth, may well have been in Luks’s mind as he devised his own image of Hanna. Yet a more proximate source

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict

Fig. 5-3. Hanna: That Man Clay Was an Ass. It’s Better to Be President Than to Be Right! Verdict, March 13, 1899, back cover. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

derived from ἀ omas Nast’s famous 1871 satires of Boss Tweed. Luks was only five years old when Nast created his anti-Tweed cartoons for Harper’s Weekly. Yet Luks, who after all satirized Tammany Hall in his Hogan’s Alley cartoons, must have known the legend of how Nast’s drawings led to the downfall of Boss Tweed. Nast’s popular lecture tour of the United States in 1887may have called this work to Luks’s attention, as would Nast’s turn from book illustration

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Fig. 5-4. How It’s Done in Wall Street, Verdict, May 1, 1899, 10-11. G eneral Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

to oil painting and his support for the Democratic Party and Grover Cleveland in 1884. Nast’s cartoon The “Brains” (Harper’s Weekly, October 21, 1871) depicted the rotund form of Tweed clad in a dark business suit, wearing a vest, and sporting a large jeweled stickpin and moneybag face. Luks perpetuated Tweed’s attire and doughy figure in numerous images he would draw of the Ohio financier. Nast inscribed a large dollar sign atop the bag substituting for Tweed’s face and brains, a symbol Luks would appropriate to great effect as he came to fine-tune his own caricature. ἀ ese disparate sources coalesce in several cartoons: Hanna: That Man Clay Was an Ass. It’s Better to Be President Than Right! (Verdict, March 13, 1899, back cover; fig. 5-3), The Great American Simolean Sextette—Hanna: Now All Together—Dough! (Verdict, February 13, 1899, 8–9), and How It’s Done in Wall Street (Verdict, May 1, 1899, 10–11;ee s fig. 5-4). In Hanna: That Man Clay Was an Ass, Luks presents his quintessential satire of bossism: a face grotesquely puffed up and distorted; an up-turned nose resembling a pig’s snout; wild, puffy eyes; a distended, meaty earlobe; and an oversized thumb engraved with dollar signs. Hanna’s bloated appearance, out-of-scale hand, and fanatical stare reinforce the notion of his insatiable,

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict rapacious nature. Only two months previously, in the January 23, 1899, Puck, Keppler had used the motif of bloated money bags in his cartoon The Bosses of the Senate to satirize the influence of Trust money in electing senators. And the influence of Homer Davenport, chief cartoonist for Hearst’s New York World, who first satirized Hanna during the 1896 presidential campaign as a coarse, bloated business tycoon, provided yet another model Luks could employ (Hess and Kaplan, 126).4 Hanna’s obesity became a leitmotif in Luks’s caricatures. In Hanna: That Man Clay Was an Ass, Hanna leans in conspiratorially toward a smiling, simpleton McKinley dressed in an ill-fitting formal coat and oversized top hat. ἀ e president’s passive demeanor, cloying grin, and manner of dress characterize him as a mere puppet controlled by Hanna, shown imparting political advice to his protégé as he gears up for the president’s reelection only eight months off. In depicting McKinley thus, Luks may well have had in mind Keppler’s cartoon Where Is He? in which the GOP candidate Benjamin Harrison shrinks into his grandfather William Henry Harrison’s tall beaver skin hat, a reference to the idea that privilege and connection counted more as a factor in the nomination than political experience, a charge now being pinned on McKinley by the Verdict, with Hanna substituting for William Harrison and McKinley for Benjamin. In the Luks cartoon, a framed portrait of Henry Clay bears the motto, “I’d rather be right than president,” the very phrase ridiculed by Hanna. A passionate antislavery advocate, Clay’s political skills lay in his ability to effect the Missouri Compromise, preserving the Union against sectarian interests, for which he earned the sobriquet “the Great Compromiser.” During his second run for the presidency in 1839, Clay delivered strong antislavery speeches against the advice of his friends and advisers. In reply, Clay is said to have uttered the famous phrase emblazoned above his portrait, confirming his moral, principled integrity. ἀ e stark juxtaposition of Clay and Hanna obviate Luks’s meaning: in Clay’s time, principle was paramount in politics versus the corrupting influence of Hanna’s money in the McKinley White House. ἀ e effect depends on the reader understanding the reference to Clay. However, in The Great American Simoleon Sextette, Luks abandoned nuance. Six millionaires holding scores form a semicircle before conductor Hanna, who waves a baton labeled Trusts as he leads the group in a song extolling money while a musician playing a dollar sign–embossed piano accompanies them. ἀ e assembled throng is identified by names appended to their scores: Henry Osborne Havemeyer (1847–1907), industrialist with controlling

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict interests in the American Sugar Refining Company; John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), consolidator of electric, steel, and agricultural equipment who created the U.S. Steel Corporation; John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937), Standard Oil tycoon; William C. Whitney (1841–1904), organizer of the Metropolitan Street Railway; Seth Low (1850–1916), successful businessman and mayor of Brooklyn; and Cornelius Vanderbilt (1843–1899),inheritor of his father’s holdings in the New York Central Railroad. Morgan, Whitney, and Low are singled out for particular scorn as they sing female parts. In emasculating these captains of industry by calling into question their manhood, Luks shares in the culture of gendered journalistic satire developed by Keppler for Puck in The Cinderella of the Republican Party, depicting Grant and Republican spoils man Roscoe Conkling in drag, likening them to the wicked sisters of the fairytale in order to denigrate their character. In the all-male political culture of the era, when campaigns were described with boxing or cock-fighting metaphors and victory validated manhood, losers often found themselves labeled with derogatory feminine epithets, including “political hermaphrodites,” “eunuchs,” “man-millers” and “miss-Nancys” (Sproat, 261).5 Similarly, Luks’s pinning the label of effeminacy on leading Trust magnates obviates the disdainful and the corrupting influence of their money upon American politics. Feminized robber barons are further depicted as wily, self-serving opportunists in How It’s Done in Wall Street. Within the cozy all-male retreat represented by a New York financial district barbershop, the solicitous quartet of George Gould, Russell Sage, William C. Whitney, and Mark Hanna grooms a muzzled, docile, tiger submitting to being clipped poodle fashion. Hanna’s obesity doubles as a metaphor for unlimited campaign cash and its power to influence even the most steadfast opponents, indicated by the muzzle over the tiger’s face and the large sheers Hanna wields. Invented with great effectiveness by ἀ omas Nast for the 1871 Harper’s Weekly campaign against the corrupt New York City political machine of Boss Tweed, the tiger symbol of Tammany Hall became a powerfully enduring image of self-interested politics. Nast’s wood engraving appearing in the November 11, 1871, Harper’s Weekly depicted a snarling tiger within a coliseum mauling a prostrate woman identified as the American Republic, while her broken sword and shield, symbols of the power of the ballot, lay at her feet. ἀ e tiger turns its gaping maw toward the viewer, its next implied victim, as a rotund Tweed sits like Nero beneath a victory trophy labeled “spoils.” Luks was a toddler when Nast’s cartoon appeared in Harper’s Weekly, but by 1892, when he joined the staff of Puck,

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict Nast’s tiger had become an iconic symbol of the power of cartoons to effect social change. Billed as “the destroyer of Tammany Hall,” Nast orchestrated a highly publicized departure from Harper’s Weekly in 1886, the very year Luks began his newspaper career with the World. Nast’s attempt to establish his own Weekly between 1892 and 1893 as a rival to Harper’s and Puck, where Luks then worked, and his turn to painting after 1894 as Luks also hoped to do provided additional influential precedents. It would have been a logical step for Luks to borrow Nast’s tiger to convey the cozy relationship between Tammany Democrats and Republican tycoons who conspired first to obstruct then profit from construction of New York City’s first subway line. Although Luks drew Wall Street for the May 1, 1899, Verdict, subway line construction would not commence for another ten months. ἀ e additional delay indicates the intensity of the controversy. Social reformers envisioned the subway as a cure-all for overcrowded slums, providing laborers with inexpensive transportation while dispersing homogeneous ethnic communities across northern Manhattan and the outer boroughs of the city.6 Manhattan’s elevated trains, erected as a stopgap measure, proved inadequate due to slow speed, inconvenient routes, shoddy construction, fouling of city streets with noise and soot, and unsightly tracks, as well as costly fares precluding their use by most tenement dwellers. Yet individuals with capital resources to invest in public works projects, such as Russell Sage, part owner of the Manhattan Elevated, put forth the myth that underground railroads would not attract riders because of their smoky, dank tunnels. Sage appears as the central figure in Luks’s cartoon, holding a container of lather while his connection to the Manhattan Elevated is indicated in the shaving mug in the right background bearing the word “Manhattan.” Together with Jay Gould, the two manipulated stock in the Manhattan Elevated Company, gaining monopolistic control over New York City’s transit system by 1884. In 1892 Gould’s interest passed to his son, George, shown in Luks’s cartoon with his back to the viewer and a straightedge razor in his right hand. Working together, Sage and George Gould conspired to delay plans for a subway line they feared would create competition to their rail monopoly. Maximizing profit by selling watered stock to Manhattan Elevated investors, Sage and Gould simultaneously minimized expenditures on necessary improvements. ἀ e Manhattan’s service grew so shoddy that by 1896 the company actually lost passenger traffic at the rate of $12 million in annual fares. ἀ e other major railway system, the surface trolley Metropolitan line managed by William C. Whitney, shown in Luks’s cartoon with his

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict arms around the tiger’s neck, pursued an alternative strategy, investing heavily in new equipment, cars, and new cable and electric traction technologies. Yet these improvements were also purchased with watered stock, limiting the future ability of the Metropolitan to maintain quality upgrades, although in the short term increasing ridership. In Luks’s cartoon, the Metropolitan’s surface transit monopoly is hinted at in the shaving mug bearing the company’s name located on the shelf directly beside the Manhattan mug. ἀ e decrepit condition of the elevated sometimes resulted in dramatic accidents (Zurier, Snyder, and Mecklenburg, 91). Yet Luks seems not to have distinguished between trolleys and the elevated, generally lampooning the unsafe conditions of New York’s rail system in no fewer than four Verdict cartoons. In How the Police Facilitate Traffic at the Broadway Crossing (Verdict, February 6, 1899, 8–9), the incompetence of police in ameliorating traffic congestion is underscored by the rotund officer standing beside the trolley tracks, looking about, and chuckling as hansom cabs capsize and careen into the onrushing trolley cars. Similarly, in The Coroner (Verdict, February 13, 1899, front cover), a myopic forensic expert leans over the body of a victim whose dismembered limbs are strewn upon the tracks, as bystanders look on and a fiendish motorman clangs his trolley bell. ἀ e indifference with which city officials responded to such injuries is highlighted in the Annual Parade of the Cable-Trolley Cripple Club (Verdict, March 20, 1899, 10–11),where a rush-hour crowd of bandaged and maimed passengers alights from streetcars staffed by skeletal motormen. ἀ e monopoly exercised by the Metropolitan and Manhattan rail systems precluded other investors from coming forward to bid on a subway contract. Although it was proposed that the cost of construction would prove feasible if the city paid for and owned the system while hiring private investors to construct and manage it, an additional inhibiting factor was the fear political and social reformers had of a municipal subway system under the control of Tammany. It would not be until May 22, 1894, that the Rapid Transit Act, incorporating the idea of municipal subway ownership with private management, passed the legislature and was signed into law. Yet it would take another six years for the act to become reality. In the interim, the only entity to step forward with a construction plan was the Metropolitan, offering two proposals, the first in January 1898 and the second in March 1899, less than two months before Luks drew his tiger cartoon in the Verdict. Luks’s drawing appeared shortly after terms of the Metropolitan’s offer were made public: the company

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict agreed to construct the subway with private capital and pay the city an annual rental of 5 percent on the cost of construction in exchange for a lease in perpetuity to manage the franchise and exemption from taxation until such time as it recouped all its construction costs plus 5 percent. Furthermore, the company could reduce its rental fee at any time that gross receipts failed to pay 5 percent of the cost of construction and set regular fares at five cents, express fares at ten cents, and transfers at three cents, steep fees for East Side workers (New York World, March 28, 1899, 1–2). Public outcry was immediate. Civic organizations, labor unions, and ethnic societies joined in loud protest, lumping together Tammany, Republican boss Croker, the Metropolitan, the New York Rapid Transit Commission (RTC), and surface railway capitalists as corrupt swindlers enriching themselves at public expense (New York World, April 3, 1899, 1; April 12, 1899, 2). When New York governor ἀ eodore Roosevelt came out against such a proposal, and when the RTC itself balked, the Metropolitan’s offer was rejected, opening up the way for other bids (New York World, April 18, 1899, 1). Whitney and ἀ omas Ryan of the Metropolitan, together with Anthony Brady of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, never believed a subway would be profitable. ἀ eir principal interest was to obtain a far more lucrative monopoly, revenue collected from control of the subway tunnel through which would run lines for gas, electricity, telephones, and telegraph (New York Times, April 18, 1899, 1). In this hopeful scheme, Brady, a principal in the New York Gas and Electric Light, Heat, and Power Company, joined Whitney and Ryan (Bowker, 890–894). Luks alludes to Brady’s role in the shaving mug labeled “Brooklyn Rapid Transit” on the barbershop shelf. Luks further critiqued such corrupt business in several cartoons, including Second Burglar: There’s the Old Fool Asleep! The Swag Is Under His Head. Grab It! (Verdict, April 17, 1899, 10–11),where four masked burglars sneak into an unguarded boudoir and stealthily approach a sleeping Father Knickerbocker. A rifle above his bed represents the RTC, and a rolled document beneath the pillow bears the words “tunnel franchise.” As the lead burglar moves in to retrieve the document, he steps upon a (Tammany) tiger-skin rug as his partner in crime urges him to grab the prize before “old fool” New York realizes it is missing. ἀ e burglars remain unidentified, but their number correlates with Whitney, Elkins, Widener, and Brady, principals in the New York Gas and Electric Light, Heat, and Power Company. ἀ e equation of their actions in seeking control of the New York City subway tunnel franchise with

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict that of thieves fleecing an unsuspecting victim creates an image of robber barons that shockingly lays bare their intent. Having depicted Hanna as a bloated thief, Luks extended this analogy, drawing upon the culture of newspapers and the precedent set by artist Walt McDougall. On October 30, 1884, McDougall created a sensation when his cartoon The Royal Feast of Belshazzar Blaine and the Money Kings appeared on the front page of the New York World, a mere four days before the presidential election. McDougall’s cartoon excoriates the lavish dinner held at Delmonico’s restaurant on October 29 by wealthy donors honoring Republican candidate James G. Blaine. Arrayed in formal attire around a lavish table and identified by sashes, diners anoint Blaine king while a destitute working-class family begs for table scraps. ἀ e biblical admonition condemning the Babylonian King Belshazzar appears on the wall. While lacking in artistic merit, McDougall’s cartoon is important for having affected the election outcome. Democrats reproduced it by the thousands, plastering broadsides throughout New York State, a factor contributing to Blaine’s loss of New York by a scant 1,100 votes and throwing the election to Grover Cleveland. An upset Democratic victory was precisely what Luks hoped to repeat in the election of 1900 as he drew upon McDougall’s precedent in crafting To the Trusts: Eat, Drink and Be Merry, for in 1900 You Die (Verdict, April 3, 1899, 10–11;fig. 5-5), enhancing the impact by adopting a two-page centerfold format. Luks altered McDougall’s frontal image by angling the banquet table to create the illusion of space. As in McDougall’s drawing, diners bear portrait likenesses, and wear formal attire and identifying sashes. What is unique is the obese figure of Hanna seated at the head of the table with baby McKinley at his side. Hanna’s bloated form and dollar-signed earlobe obviate his clout, reinforced by the dagger-size carving knife he wields labeled “ship subsidy,” a reference to high protectionist tariffs supported by the Republican Party. Miss Liberty bears aloft a peacock (symbol of a proud nation) about to be carved up by Hanna. Contrastingly, McKinley is denigrated as a toddler swathed in a bib, the better to eat his bowl of porridge. In the upper right, Luks repeats the biblical admonition of McDougall’s drawing and for good measure depicts Senator Chauncey Depew (1834–1928) as court jester. Before his election, Depew served as the New York Central Railroad’s general counsel, vice president, and president, rising to chairman of the board of the entire Vanderbilt railway system in 1898. Luks’s delight in satirizing the condition of New York City’s transit made DePew a logical target.

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict

Fig. 5-5. To the Trusts: Eat, Drink and Be Merry, for in 1900 You Die, Verdict, April 3, 1899, 10–11. General Research Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

ἀ e idea that Trust barons were in fact robber barons is wonderfully conveyed in a double-page cartoon, One Sees His Finish Unless Good Government Retakes the Ship (Verdict, May 22, 1899, 10–11).ἀ e roseate sky effects, translucent ocean greens, and meticulously rendered pirate costumes make this one of Luks’s most visually stimulating and technically accomplished efforts. A pirate band seizes the ship and takes Uncle Sam prisoner. While trampling the American flag, they hoist the Jolly Roger and force a blindfolded Uncle Sam to walk the plank. Standing front and center, Hanna grins disquietingly, implying, perhaps, that the public is to be his next victims. Philip Armour and Widener, whose skull and crossbones banner identifies the sorry state of labor, assist him. ἀ e caption leaves no doubt that America and democratic government are finished unless reforms and clean government prevail over the piratical acts of the Trusts. During the summer of 1899, Luks reprised the food motif, creating two additional satires, Abbot Hanna and the Protection Monks of St. Mack of the

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Fig. 5-6. Protection Nursery, the Trusts Reared and Cared For, Verdict, August 14, 1899, 10–11.

Monastery of the Trusts Busy Themselves with Mushroom Culture (Verdict, July 17, 1899, 12–13) and Protection Nursery, the Trusts Reared and Cared For (Verdict, August 14, 1899, 10–11;fig. 5-6). In the first, monks tend to a mushroom harvest within the recesses of a dank cave. Each fungus bears the name of a different trust, while the monks are identified as captains of industry headed by Abbot Hanna. In flaming letters across the cave roof is the word “protection,” while bats and demons hover about a fiery idol of McKinley that appears in the right background atop a column inscribed “bankruptcy, protection, and Algerism.” ἀ e cartoon’s anti-Catholic nativism partakes of sentiment fanned in the popular press by illustrators such as ἀ omas Nast, whose satire The American River Ganges (Harper’s Weekly, September 30, 1871) depicted Tammany politicians standing beneath the ruins of a schoolhouse while sacrificing children to a river infested with bishops whose mitres resemble crocodile maws. In linking Roman Catholicism with a river sacred to Hindus, Nast seemed to suggest the un-American character of Catholicism. Similarly, Luks conjures up an image of a secretive medieval religious order whose members spent their lives in caves growing mushrooms while secretly adoring idols,

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict belying the monks’ sincerity and benevolence. In equating the protectionism favored by Hanna, McKinley, and Trust leaders with monks, Luks cleverly comingled nativist sentiment and anti-Catholicism to generate public distrust and suspicion against them. Protection Nursery reprises the gender reversal popularized by Puck founder Joseph Keppler and referenced previously. But in addition to Keppler’s transgendering theme, Luks also borrowed from Keppler’s Puck cartoon of May 19, 1886, depicting striking workers and union activists as suckling infants lying under the dining table and a working-class family’s siphoning off porridge from the family’s common bowl. While Keppler clearly faulted strikers for worsening the lot of labor, Luks blamed the robber barons and reversed this conceit. In the Luks drawing, the transgendering of Hanna and McKinley into nursemaids equates their concern for the Trusts with the doting care of nannies for petulant infants identified variously as Henry O. Havemeyer, Philip Armour, Collis Huntington, John D. Rockefeller, Peter Widener, and John Pierpont Morgan. ἀ ese figures have been purposefully selected due to their corporate excesses. Havermeyer formed the Sugar Refineries Company in 1887to control the price of sugar by buying up and consolidating refineries. By 1892 he controlled 98 percent of the market. ἀ e subject of an important antitrust case brought by the Cleveland administration in 1895, Havermeyer prevailed in the U.S. Supreme Court when the justices ruled manufacturing per se did not constitute interstate commerce and hence was not subject to government regulation under the Sherman Antitrust Act. His victory served as catalyst for a wave of mergers by other corporations and conglomerates. Armour rose to prominence as a meat packer, building plants in Chicago and developing ice-cooled storage facilities and refrigerator cars enabling the shipping of meat nationwide. Huntington controlled rail conglomerates with 9,000 miles of track. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil in 1870, gaining a near monopoly over oil production by forcing competitors out of business, while Widener controlled street railways in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York. Morgan reorganized his father’s banking interests as J. P. Morgan and Company and was instrumental in establishing General Electric and the corporate giant U.S. Steel. In contrast to them, nursemaid McKinley appears passive while the matronly Hanna orders the president about, saying, “Mack, there’s the sugar trust kid yelling. . . . Fill up its bottle, and stop its noise,” a comment drawing attention to the loudly wailing Havermeyer. In depicting these

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict men, Luks suggests their corporate ambition is like the irrational demands of spoiled children who are never satiated despite the most solicitous efforts of the much-put-upon president-nursemaid McKinley. ἀ e most pernicious danger of the Trusts, however, lay in the fundamental way their corporate ambitions seemed to alter the very fabric of the Republic. Luks addressed this both at the level of the individual figure of Hanna and by exposing the connection between Hanna, his cronies, and the nascent American imperialism. ἀi s is graphically expressed in two drawings produced in the summer of 1899, The National Socrates and the Republican Hemlock (Verdict, June 26, 1899, front cover; fig. 5-7) and The Second Issue, the Advance of Imperialism (Verdict, July 10, 1899, 12–13). The National Socrates employs classical allusion, a device frequently used by leading illustrators of the period, including Nast, Keppler, and Victor Gillam and Bernard Gillam, illustrators for Judge (Hess and Kaplan, 114–115). Luks depicts Uncle Sam in the guise of the Greek philosopher Socrates, imprisoned in 399 B.C.E. by a self-serving elite in Athens represented by Hanna, McKinley, ἀ omas Reed (1839–1902), and Lyman Gage (1836–1927). Hanna wears a blood-red toga, his hair coiffed in dollar signs, as he hands Uncle Sam a glass of poisoned hemlock labeled “$14,000,000 deficit,” a result of America’s recent war with Spain. An infantile McKinley watches. As the noble Socrates partook of this poison, so, too, Uncle Sam is expected to swallow the national debt. Hanna’s obesity, hideous grin, and the proffered hemlock establish his leadership. Directly behind stands Lyman Gage, secretary of the treasury in the McKinley administration, who diligently worked to defeat the free silver platform of Bryan and backed McKinley during the election of 1896. Nine months after Luks’s cartoon appeared in the Verdict, Gage would secure passage of the Gold Standard Act of 1900, reestablishing gold as the sole basis for the nation’s currency. At Gage’s left, the jowly figure of ἀ omas Reed stands witness. One-time rival of McKinley for the role of Speaker of the House, Reed served in that capacity from 1889 to 1891and again from 1895to 1899, during which time he dramatically increased the power of the Speaker. As such, he became a fitting target for the Verdict and a symbol for the unhealthy consolidation of power like that exercised by Hanna and his Trust associates. The Second Issue forcefully raises the specter of unchecked power. A farmer contentedly plowing his field looks up to suddenly encounter a fanatical despot emerging from a black cloud barreling toward him in a chariot trailed by a retinue of bats, vultures, and goblins. ἀ e charioteer sports the same hideous, toothless grimace as his counterpart

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict

Fig. 5-7. The National Socrates and the Republican Hemlock, Verdict, June 26, 1899, front cover.

in The National Socrates, while his earlobe, his gold crown adorned with dollar signs, and the banner trailing behind identify him as Hanna, who together with his sidekick McKinley race the imperialism chariot out of the blackness of hell populated by vultures Morgan, Huntington, Widener, Rockefeller, and Armour. A batlike Alger holding smoldering contracts and a green package labeled “embalmed beef ” guides them.

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict ἀ e farmer iconography—boots, workpants, suspenders, striped flannel shirt, wide-brimmed straw hat—appears on posters for the Grange, in documentary period photographs, and in vaudeville costumes to denote a naive country person. Its ubiquity ensured instantaneous recognition and reinforces the contrast between peaceful, agrarian pursuits like husbandry championed by Bryan versus imperialist expansionism favored by the Trusts. Hanna’s juggernaut evokes images of Albrecht Dürer’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1498; Kupferstichkabinet, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe) illustrating chapter 6 from the book of Revelation, where pestilence, famine, death, and war ride roughshod over helpless humanity. A broad segment of the population in both fifteenth-century Germany and nineteenth-century Protestant America, where Bible reading constituted a principal form of daily family devotions, subscribed to Dürer’s apocalyptic message, making the allusion a logical reference. Luks drew upon similar popular religious imagery on other occasions for the Verdict, emphasizing the destructive path embarked upon by American foreign policy. In Imperialism: A Study (Verdict, July 24, 1899, 12–13), a conflagration engulfs the horizon beyond a green sea, while the foreground beach is littered with dead soldiers. A looming hand holds the scales of justice spilling additional bodies onto the shore from one of its plates, while in the second, labeled “imperialism,” a McKinley-like figure stands proudly aloof. In the lower left-hand corner of this image, Dürer’s Praying Hands (1508; Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna) appears as if pleading for an alternative political course. A two-page drawing, The Issue: Shall Industry and Art Depart Before Trust Greed (Verdict, August 28, 1899, 10–11), dep icted a glaring Lucifer holding bloody swords and looming over a flaming landscape littered with cadavers as he bids a tearful couple leave. ἀ e weeping woman, clothed in a white robe and holding a golden lyre, represents art, and her defiant male companion in leather apron and holding a mallet, commerce. ἀ eir posture recalls countless images of an angel banishing Adam and Eve from Eden. ἀ e naïveté of these three drawings contrasts with the more sophisticated compositions and complex historical references evident in The Second Issue and The National Socrates, demonstrating that under great pressure to respond swiftly to repeated editorial demands for topical cartoons, Luks occasionally resorted to facile imagery set within rudimentary contexts. Such is the case with the Spanish-American War cartoons. ἀ e American press tended to portray the conflict as the liberation of oppressed peoples who craved self-determination and democracy (Mott). Yet eight weeks after

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict the signing of the Treaty of Paris, a bloody insurrection against the American presence erupted in the Philippines, compelling McKinley to maintain a strong military force while engaging in a three-year campaign against determined guerrillas. At the same time, lurid press revelations concerning tainted rations served to American GIs during the war created sustained public outcry for punishing those responsible.7 Such events provided an opportunity for the Verdict to discredit McKinley at the start of his second term. At the outset, Luks continued to use historical allusion. In Is He to Be a Despot? (Verdict, February 27, 1899, front cover), the ghosts of Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte loom over a tyrannical McKinley standing upon a Philippine island, his right foot resting upon a prostrate native. Luks relies on the reader’s knowledge of history and allegory to generate the desired effect, although the Filipino, like Liliokalani, is rendered as a dark-skinned barbarian. But as the uprising wore on and American casualties mounted, Luks grew bolder. By mid-August 1899, he openly critiqued the American military presence as a threat to democracy. The Imperialism Stunt (Verdict, August 14, 1899, front cover) presents a design in which a flag-draped Miss Liberty holding a cavalry saber precariously walks a tightrope spanning a battleship-filled ocean. In the foreground lies America, symbolized by a soldier at attention before a red, white, and blue–striped guardhouse, a cigar-smoking Uncle Sam, an American bald eagle, and the doll-like figures of Hanna and skirtwearing McKinley. In the distant horizon lies Manila, though with peculiarly Chinese-looking architecture. ἀ e superfluous abundance of national symbols combined with the patriotic color scheme reinforces the sarcasm. More pointedly, The Way We Get Our War News (Verdict, August 21, 1899, front cover) excoriates military press censorship, a supremely ironic development given the appeals to freedom used to justify the war. Within a barred room, its walls painted blood-red, a cohort of five army officers headed by a swordwielding Major General Elwell Stephen Otis (1838–1909), military governor of the Philippines, forces a manacled war correspondent to write only approved dispatches. A mound of scribbled papers from an overflowing wastebasket testifies to the coercion exerted upon him to induce cooperation. Hanging on the rear wall, a gilt-framed portrait of Hanna, identifiable by his telltale dollar-inscribed earlobe, glares down upon the scene, and a diminutive portrait of McKinley faces Hanna’s picture, its scale a testament to the weakness of McKinley, the overarching power of Hanna, and the Trust interests that supported expansion of American business into the Pacific.8

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict ἀ e public clamor over tainted rations provided another source of material for Verdict artists. In April 1899, during the official army inquiry, testimony was offered on the widespread sickness that developed among men of the Seventh Illinois Regiment after eating beef supplied by Armour. Dr. Samuel Currie detailed how soldiers threw away their putrid rations, whose color resembled raw salmon (New York Times, April 6, 1899, 5). Egged on by the persistence of General Nelson Miles, principal officer protesting the shoddy administration of the Army Commissary Department, the issue dominated the news, ultimately affecting Secretary of War Russell Alger, already under fire for his missteps in ill-equipping troops for tropical warfare (Morgan, 296–300). With the Philippine war bogged down, the New York Herald began a campaign to force Alger’s resignation. By August 1, following McKinley’s private communication, Alger complied and stepped aside. In The Second Issue, Luks had alluded to this scandal. But that was not the first time he tackled the theme. When the scandal first broke, he drew Now Will You Resign? (Verdict, April 3, 1899, front cover), depicting the rather clichéd image of a frightened Alger taunted by a bevy of demons and roused from a sound sleep by the skeletal apparition of a GI holding a tin of embalmed beef while pointing an accusatory finger. Luks’s image recalls the medieval morality painting Death of the Miser (ca. 1490; National Gallery of Art) by Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450–1516). Yet because the issue remained newsworthy, Verdict editor Alfred Lewis tried a variety of approaches, ranging from sarcasm to parody, to keep the topic before the public. On April 17, for example, he presented the views of a regular correspondent of the magazine, the fictitious Tammany Tim, an underworld Brooklyn type with shady connections who editorialized weekly on a wide range of political topics. Lambasting unsafe meat, Tim opined to Mayor Van Wyck: Be youse on about w’at them Chicago cow skinners is doin’ to us? Dey’s slingin’ d’ merry old dope into us wit’out mercy or cessation. D’ beef we chews on in Noo York is ’mbalmed. Dey don’t play d’ ice on it; not on your life! It’s a case of ’mbalmin’ flooid. Dey gives it d’ gay syringe, or toins d’hose onto it, or puts it to soak or somethin’. An’ den when it’s an’ even break wit’ an Egyptian mummy dey sends it on us, slams it on a block, an’ we suckers is up ag’inst it.

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict Tim’s colorful Brooklyn speech is reinforced by black-and-white sketches in the margins of the text drawn by Luks and emphasizing the rogue’s roughhewn character. ἀ ese leave little doubt Tammany Tim would avail of “connections” if need be to accomplish his purpose. ἀ ey often portray Tim in profile or occasionally seated frontally, as in the July 24 edition, where he is shown having a fictitious conversation with Secretary Alger. In one instance Tim brawls with another man, the better to set off his unshaven face, bulbous nose, and big cigar, while stressing his cheap suits, flashy vests, and rakish bowler hat. One of Tim’s pawlike hands is thrust into his rumpled suit jacket, while the other is held perpendicular to his body in a slangy gesture indicative of his slick maneuvering.9 Occasionally, Lewis simply wrote a terse editorial directly making the case that Alger resign, as he did in the May 1, 1899, Verdict. To set off this particular text, Luks furnished a caricature of the secretary of war featuring his enlarged profile head, recognizable by his bushy mustache and goatee, placed upon a diminutive, spindly body clad in a formal frock coat and top hat. ἀ e visual contrast between the text and Alger’s comic image drives home the point of the secretary’s incompetence. And Luks repeated this image in a second anti-Alger editorial, “How Uncle Sam Was Robbed in War Time” (Verdict, July 3, 1899, 8). Equally popular, though less frequent than Tammany Tim, were the Prominent Lobster caricatures featuring the body of a reddish Maine lobster superimposed upon the portrait head of a politician. A slang term for a known cheater, the word “lobster” obviously suggested to Luks this visual juxtaposition. ἀ e one featuring Russell A. Alger appeared in the July 3, 1899, Verdict. Other figures satirized in this manner included Sereno Payne, Republican congressman from New York (Verdict, May 29, 1899, 9; Seth Low, Brooklyn mayor (Verdict, June 5, 1899, 9); and Republican John D. Long, secretary of war (Verdict, July 10, 1899, 9). ἀ e one Democrat so satirized was Grover Cleveland (Verdict, June 26, 1899, 9). When time allowed, Luks took full advantage of chromolithography to compose centerfold cartoons on the beef scandal. His most elaborate effort is titled Alger Is Thrown to the Wolves of Criticism (Verdict, August 21, 1899, 10–11;fig. 5-8). Racing across a frozen landscape, a boxy administration sleigh commanded by an obese Cossack speeds along. ἀ e Cossack’s features identify him as a determined Hanna. As terrified children huddle together in the sleigh, McKinley throws one to a pack of wolves. ἀ e children are identified as members of McKinley’s cabinet and the sacrificial victim as Alger. In the left

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Fig. 5-8. Alger Is Thrown to the Wolves of Criticism, Verdict, August 21, 1899, 10–11.

corner of the drawing, Luks added an inscription acknowledging borrowing “from the famous painting by Schreyer.” An esteemed academic artist trained in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Munich, Adolf Schreyer (1828–1899) painted horses, peasant life, and Orientalist genre subjects much collected by American connoisseurs, including the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Astors, as well as August Belmont, father of Oliver H. Belmont, financial backer of the Verdict. Deceased on July 29, 1899, shortly before Luks drew his cartoon, Schreyer would have been a logical artistic source for Luks to appropriate. Schreyer’s canvas Troika in Winter (private collection) presents the boxlike sleigh, a team of animated horses, the barren winter landscape, and the huddled riders found in the Luks drawing. Yet Luks’s borrowing is more complex. A decade earlier, on October 29, 1884, Joseph Keppler also utilized Schreyer as his source in a famous cartoon for Puck, A Sacrifice to the Political Wolf, which bears a striking similarity to Luks’s own cartoon in the Verdict, and for similar motives. In Keppler’s cartoon, the child represents New York City, the wolves Tammany Hall, and the principal antagonist is Republican presidential candidate Blaine, the implication being that if the Republican machine agreed to grant Tammany Hall political favors by allowing them to

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict control city business, Tammany, in turn, would ensure enough votes for Blaine to secure his election to the presidency. Luks’s borrowings from European academic tradition and Puck provide important insights into his working method and testify to the broad range of influences available to him. ἀr ee principal themes—Hanna, Trust greed, and McKinley—coalesce in drawings about the 1900 presidential election. A recurring motif in these is the circus, suggesting both the raucous nature of politics and its artfully orchestrated management. ἀ e earliest, The Greatest Show on Earth (Verdict, January 23, 1899, 10–11),depicts a striped awning beneath which a humanfaced clown monkey pops through a hoop labeled “U.S. senatorship.” Two ringmasters stand on raised daises emblazoned with dollar signs. At the left is J. P. Morgan and at the right Cornelius Vanderbilt II, owner of the New York Central. Standing at far right is a caricature of Republican Party boss ἀ omas Platt as a clown costumed in the toothsome visage of Teddy Roosevelt, Republican governor of New York State. ἀ e parody is intended to expose Roosevelt’s manipulation by Platt, who secured his nomination as vice president, thereby supposedly quelling Roosevelt’s meddlesome interference in the Trusts. ἀ e human-headed monkey caricatures Chauncey M. Depew, Republican candidate for New York senator in 1899, suggesting his willingness to do Vanderbilt’s and Morgan’s bidding. Luks would further satirize Roosevelt on the front cover of the Verdict (June 12, 1899), where Roosevelt is at his desk, which is covered with messages from Platt and Root. While the circus motif did not originate with Luks, he gave it renewed poignancy. Keppler, for example, only suggested in his May 2, 1883, circus cartoon for Puck that neither party could provide an equitable solution to the vexing tariff question. Luks is more overt in both Punch and Judy (Verdict, June 5, 1899, back cover) and The Coming Republican Circus Has a Dress Rehearsal (Verdict, July 3, 1899, 12–13), where he excoriated Republican manipulation of the political process for crass personal gain. In Punch and Judy, Platt reappears dressed in the guise of a clown, his beanbag form set off with gamboling GOP elephants betraying his loyalties. Standing next to a drum inscribed with the word “leadership,” Platt directs puppet master Elihu Root on the action he should follow in putting the puppets, identified as Governor Roosevelt and the New York legislature, through their paces, as a crowd of children watch. Root peeks out from behind the theater curtain to inquire of Platt, “What’s the plot for the extra session? Does Teddy Punch do up the Judy legislature, or how about it?” to which Platt cautiously responds, “I’ll give you the tip later on.”

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict ἀ e meaning is clear. Although Platt engineered the election of Roosevelt to the governorship, he soon discovered Roosevelt followed his own agenda. In his cartoon, Luks suggests Platt is the classic clown, a semitragic Punchinello, all show and substance yet ultimately not completely in control of the drama in which he stars. Similarly, The Coming Republican Circus presents a big-top dress rehearsal, complete with safety nets, costumed clowns, acrobats, and trained animals practicing before a crowd of dignitaries prior to their public debut. A clownish Seth Low, wearing a flounced ruff and mortarboard hat (symbol of his presidency of Columbia University), gesticulates before a manager’s box, where the prominent figures of Hanna, Reed, and little girl McKinley sit cozily together. Low would become a candidate for mayor of Greater New York, and the circle-with-slash logo on the front of his pants may well reflect Luks’s uncertain view of his pending candidacy. Behind Low, the GOP elephant balances on a tricolor ball identified with the Mazet Committee, while its tail bears a tag labeled “gas steal,” a reference to the gas scandal and the committee formed to investigate New York City corruption. In the background, smaller figures complete the roster, including ringmaster Root, gladiator Platt, bareback rider Depew, and musclemen Armour and Alger. High above, acrobat Roosevelt daringly leaps from a trapeze bearing the banner of governor to another flying a presidential pennant. Luks suggests that the upcoming Republican national party convention will have no more substance than a colorful circus with performers acting out their oft-rehearsed, preassigned roles under the watchful eye of their controlling managers. If the circus served as an anti-Republican motif, Luks artfully employed imagery associated with farming to contrast the Republican approach on policy issues with that of William Jennings Bryan and the Democrats, an astute choice given Bryan’s strong appeal to agrarian interests. Interestingly, the motif cut both ways: When utilized in Bryan’s favor, as in the Verdict: Mr. Bryan, Isn’t That a Healthy Tree to Get Your Main Plank From? (Verdict, May 22, 1899, 12–13), it lauds the rugged life of the yeoman farmer-woodsman and Bryan’s claim to speak authentically for the interests of the common man. When used negatively, as in Farmer Mark and the Boys Getting Ready for the Political-Presidential Market of 1900 (Verdict, August 7, 1899, 10–11;fig. 5-9), it belies Republican rhetoric by equating the abundant harvest with mortgaged promises to private interests. In both, Luks crafts some of his most beautifully rendered pictures, once again demonstrating his mastery of chromolithography.

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict

Fig. 5-9. Farmer Mark and the Boys Getting Ready for the Political-Presidential Market of 1900, Verdict, August 7, 1899, 10–11.

Isn’t That a Healthy Tree depicts Woodsman Bryan, clad in work pants, boots, and flannels, accompanied by a similarly garbed cohort of Democratic Party faithful, deep in a forest clearing. He hefts an ax over his shoulder while pausing to talk with a bewigged colonial, the Verdict mascot. ἀ e clear-eyed boy points out two massive trunks, one labeled “anti-imperialism” the other “anti-trust,” and poses the question of the cartoon’s title. Other trees branded “free silver” and “16 to 1” reinforce the free silver message, a principal tenet of Bryan’s presidential campaign, their green, leafy appearance visually contrasting with vultures circling about a dead trunk representing embalmed beef and high tariff interests. ἀ e Tammany tiger prowls at left behind the anti-imperialism tree, perhaps unsure of what to make of the sudden appearance of so many clean-cut, industrious woodsmen, as no doubt were real-life Tammany politicians when confronted by the idealistic policies of the Democratic platform.10 Meanwhile, in the lower left corner the bulbous head of a mushroom bearing the image of Grover Cleveland and a croaking frog labeled “hope 1900” suggest the distasteful prospect that the former Democratic president, defeated by McKinley in 1896, might try for a comeback.

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict ἀ e use of agrarian imagery would have conveyed a powerfully encoded message to readers in 1899. Republican apologists successfully hijacked agricultural imagery during the election of 1896 to promote McKinley’s candidacy. ἀ e July 25, 1896, cover of Harper’s Weekly displayed a particularly successful example in a cartoon by William Allen Rogers, Farmer McKinley Takes Off His Coat. In that drawing, McKinley has doffed his high tariff jacket and hat and now, clad in bib overalls and rolling up his shirtsleeves, boldly steps into an overgrown, thistle-encrusted field. Wielding a scythe burnished with the slogan “U.S. financial honor,” McKinley resolutely prepares to root out the weeds of wild-eyed populism, debased currency, and anarchy. Such imagery played upon urban middle-class voters’ fears and trumped, for many, images of struggling farmers hoeing rows of corn mortgaged to landlords, moneylenders, and railroads as, for example, Our Farmer’s Situation (The Coming Nation, November 14, 1896). In July 1896, during the first McKinley/Bryan campaign, Puck also featured a front cover depicting a farmer and his ruined mule cart (a reference to the Democratic Party) hung up at a railroad crossing for failing to heed the speeding sound money locomotive. Once again, fear of change trumped agrarian imagery. Luks dramatically reverses this outcome in his cartoon. Here, it is Bryan appearing as the hale and hearty laborer bearing the ax, ready to shoulder the burden and fell the massive anti-Trust and anti-imperialism trees to obtain his party planks. He is fearless of the looming Trust vultures and other creatures lurking about. ἀ at the vigorous and healthy trees he chooses are infinitely superior to the rotten wood of the high tariff tree is self-evident. In Farmer Mark and the Boys, the lush farm imagery is set off by intensely saturated colors. One quickly understands that the dungaree-and-red-flannelclad Hanna emerging from the White House cellar to load his wagon with bushels of cabbage is engaged in a labor of deceit, as his political children idle about and driver McKinley prepares to lead the boodle horses to the political marketplace. ἀ e image of Hanna as crafty farmer, however, did not originate with Luks. Rather, it, too, appeared during the 1896 campaign. In its August 13, 1896, edition, the American Nonconformist featured a cartoon showing farmer Mark wearing work clothes and wide-brimmed hat, and holding a hoe, while seated on a split rail fence and grinning at a field of corn whose leaves bear Trust names. In his right hand farmer Mark holds a mortgage on McKinley, referencing the president’s indebtedness to him. Luks reprises this conceit of

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict dishonest farmer Hanna, combining it with sumptuous color to drive home his own anti-Hanna and pro-Bryan message. However, not all Verdict drawings were political. ἀ e journal offered a variety of features to entertain readers, as did other leading illustrated magazine of the period. Such articles included coverage of theater events, sports, short stories, topics of foreign interest, and funny cartoons. Luks actively contributed to all these features. Some short stories were reprinted from Sandburrs, including several of Luks’s original pen-and-ink illustrations from that volume. Other illustrations are clearly influenced by the sketch techniques Luks adopted as a newspaper artist-reporter. Among these are seven illustrations accompanying the story “Blighted Love” (Verdict, June 19, 1899, 17–18) and the masthead drawing for another tale, “Mary O’Malley’s Love” (Verdict, July 31, 1899, 18), featuring proper young women in flowery Victorian dresses and hats, smitten with handsome beaux. Occasionally, illustrations rehash race stereotypes, as in “ἀ e Reformed Nigger Singer Tells a Tale of One Day’s Wild Experiences” (Verdict, February 17, 1899, 13). “ἀ e Tranquility of St. Cyr’s” (Verdict, July 10, 1899, 17) is more original in terms of subject matter and relates to the topic of the popular theater, a theme Luks also depicted in his drawings for the World. ἀ e tale describes the growing infatuation of a Frenchman for a chorus girl he meets at a ball. Following her to Newark, New Jersey, François St. Cyr makes a fool of himself, clamoring out her name and throwing bouquets at her feet until hauled away by police. Appearing before the magistrate, St. Cyr is bailed out by his wife, humbly following her home. Luks’s pen-and-ink drawing depicts the buxom chorine performing on stage, clad in black hose; short, flounced skirt; and low-cut, form-fitting top. She rustles her skirts as the infatuated St. Cyr gazes upon her from a lodge overlooking the proscenium stage. ἀ e drawing is more reportorial than artistic, indicating Luks’s familiarity with burlesque. It further provided Verdict readers with a voyeuristic, albeit secondhand, glimpse at the risqué costumes of cabaret singers and dancers similar to those Luks illustrated in Truth. Voyeurism is also evident in sketches Luks provided for the feature “Last Week at the ἀ eatres.” While Luks illustrated this column on at least sixteen occasions, in five of these (March 6, 1899, 7; March 20, 1899, 7; April 17, 1899, 7; July 24, 1899, 14; September 25, 1899, 9) he repeats the same image of an alluring young woman decked out in flounced skirt, bows, high heels, and an enormous ostrich feather hat. ἀ e woman’s blond hair streams down her back

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Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict and cascades over her shoulders, as she coyly holds up the index finger of her right hand in a gesture of innocence while sashaying about with her gloved left hand on her hip. ἀ e sense of immediacy conveyed indicates Luks probably executed the drawing during a live performance. Other sketches for these feature pages depict clowns. One portrays them paired in a tall guy/short guy contrast. Another wears blackface. A third sports hobo clothes and a large belly. All recall the Buzzy and Anstock costumes of Luks and his brother, Will. Known to fabricate boxing tales, Luks was drawn to the spectacle of sport. During his tenure at the Verdict, he furnished several sketches of baseball pitchers (March 20, 1899, 14; April 3, 1899, 11;May 15, 1899, 9), three of nattily dressed golfers (May 29, 1899, 17; July 24, 1899, 1; October 23, 1899, 8), and two of yachting subjects (July 31,1899, 11;October 30, 1899, 10). ἀ e emphasis is on the unique look of particular sporting attire, whether baggy knickers, jerseys, and square caps of baseball players, or flashy argyle socks, checkered knickers, jackets, and caps of golfers. ἀ ere seems little correlation between drawings and text, demonstrated by the fact that similar drawings are utilized interchangeably whether discussing prospects for the 1899 baseball season or horseracing. It also seems Luks did not attend sporting events, for the athletes’ poses are ungainly. Golfers stand with legs spread too wide and attack the ball with their clubs rather than following through with smooth, even strokes; baseball players contort their arms into anatomically awkward positions. ἀ e two yachting subjects, a man leaning over a boat railing while gazing out to sea and a pudgy male swimmer in trunks and jersey, bear little actual relevance to the physically demanding requirements of yachting. ἀ ese drawings indicate Luks drew upon a repertoire of stock images mastered through long training observing essential details. As the occasion required, he produced plausible renderings of the required subject. ἀ e process worked well for recalling details of sporting attire, but it was another matter portraying convincing athletic posture. Luks followed a similar process when illustrating foreign topics, a technique he mastered as an artist-reporter for the World. Such stories focused on events in France or England, indicating the Eurocentric interests of the Verdict’s readers. ἀ e nine articles on England were mostly favorable or reported ways in which Yankee hustle trumped British stolidity (Verdict, April 24, 1899, 14). Articles discussing France focused upon French volatility and the hot-blooded Gallic sense of honor (Verdict, June 12, 1899, 10). ἀ ese minor pen-and-ink sketches are placed in the margins of texts or inserted into page

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict corners. Occasionally, they are finely detailed, as in the drawing featuring a stout, jowly figure seated at a bar, his bowler hat pulled down over his eyes and a pint of ale held firmly in his right hand, perhaps a notebook sketch dating from Luks’s time as an erstwhile art student and sojourner among the boulevards of Paris and the pubs of London. Luks also drew multiframe, sequential cartoons culminating in a comic punch line. Frequently, these involve animals besting humans, as when ducks outwit a would-be hunter (Grizzly Bill Experiences His First Duck Hunt [Verdict, June 19, 1899, back cover]) or when a vicious dog chews the pants off a would-be prankster bent on tying a firecracker to its tail (The Bright Little Fourth of July Boy Plays a Merry Jest on the Dog [Verdict, July 10, 1899, back cover]). Occasionally, humans use animals to their own advantage, as when a nattily dressed gentleman spies a raging bulldog running toward him and pulls out a snarling black cat from his top hat, setting the cat upon the dog while proceeding unharmed on his way (Verdict, June 12, 1899, back cover). Sometimes cartoons address economic issues. Typical is a six-frame tale of a family who reads an advertisement for fifty-cent gas and decides to have gas lighting installed in their parlor, only to be cheated by the gasman who rigs the meter, causing them to receive a bill for $99. ἀ e cartoon closes where it began as the couple sit at home reading by the light of an oil lamp (Verdict, July 31, 1899, back cover). A prime example of a single-frame cartoon is Parkhurst and the Goo-Goos Make War Medicine against the Democracy (Verdict, April 3, 1899, 20), depicting the Presbyterian minister and president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime as a medicine man decked out in paint and feathers dancing around a camp fire as other natives watch. Parkhurst holds a totem mask, while atop the fire a seething kettle bears the words “hot stuff,” a reference to his penchant for cooking up exposés on vice and the collusion of New York police. ἀ e humor cuts in various ways. It pokes fun at Parkhurst but implicitly critiques all who set themselves up in judgment of others. Two delightful variations on this theme are Platt’s Hunting of the Tiger (Verdict, June 26, 1899, 12–13), illustrating the proverb “the man who sold the tiger’s hide while yet upon the beast was killed in hunting it,” and A Victim of the Blizzard (Verdict, March 6, 1899, 10–11).In the first, a (Tammany) tiger leaps at the GOP elephant ridden by the Mazet Committee, then engaged in investigating price fixing in which Tammany colluded, the message being that if corrupt Tammany attacks the GOP committee, it may well find its own political fortunes ruined in the process. In

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Fig. 5-10. The Tenderloin as the Hayseed Dreamed It Was. The Way the Hayseed Found It, Verdict, June 19, 1899, 12–13.

the second, New York city media, including the Herald, Tribune, World, Post, and Verdict, with the encouragement of Father Knickerbocker, lob snowballs at the hapless Seth Low, reform mayor of Brooklyn and ally of Parkhurst who would eventually be elected reform mayor of New York. The Tenderloin as the Hayseed Dreamed It Was. The Way the Hayseed Found It (Verdict, June 19, 1899, 12–13; fig. 5-10) reveals Luks’s mastery of chromolithography. In the lower left foreground, an “operator,” recognizable by his slick handlebar mustache, leering grin, and gauche checkered jacket, nabs a naive country gentleman (a rube-Peffer image noted in chapter 2) and leads him toward the Tenderloin. ἀ ere he witnesses scenes of debauchery. ἀ e actions not only shock the hayseed, they almost certainly convey Luks’s impressions of actual people he sketched coupled with his own imaginative fantasies. But the punch line comes in the second panel, where the lone hayseed, having filled his imagination with fantasies of this kind, now enters upon the Tenderloin to find a dark, deserted city street. Quite unlike reformers who denounced the supposed vices of the Tenderloin in the press, Luks offers a matter-of-fact reality check. Unlike what people imagine, the Tenderloin is not much to speak of and certainly nothing to obsess over.

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict By 1900, when he gave up illustration for painting, Luks had developed a diverse and sophisticated drawing style, one he continued to pursue throughout his career. Filling several notebooks, constantly drawing on the back of envelopes and scraps of paper, and as preparation for oil compositions, he compiled a vast repertoire previewing his latest interests and musings. Several were published throughout the 1910s and 1920s in Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, constituting a body of neglected material important for what it reveals about Luks’s graphic art during a period in his life when he had become a wellrespected and financially successful artist.

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Chapter Six

Into the Roaring Twenties Vanity Fair and New Yorker While at the Verdict, George Luks freelanced drawings to Broadway Magazine, a popular journal laced with images of leggy chorines along with more staid reviews of dramas and interviews with leading stars.1 Luks only contributed three drawings between March 1899 and March 1900. Nevertheless, each highlights a unique aspect of his talent, giving evidence of his abilities and wideranging interests. ἀ e most interesting of these is the first, Night Scene in Herald Square, Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street (Broadway Magazine, March 1899, 867; fig. 6-1), depicting a nocturnal image of horse-drawn Hansom cabs against a backdrop of elevated train tracks. Glowing plate glass–fronted shops and skyscrapers punctuated with illuminated windows fill the background, while foreground trolley tracks shimmer in the evening rain. ἀ e image differs sharply from the aesthetic predominating in contemporaneous Impressionist cityscapes such as Winter Union Square (1894; Metropolitan Museum of Art) by Childe Hassam (1859–1935). ἀ ough both depict public squares in inclement weather and feature elements of modern transportation, Hassam’s picture represents an essentially romantic, nineteenth-century viewpoint, presenting the city as a light-filled wonderland, weather serving to [ 212 ]

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker

Fig. 6-1. Night Scene in Herald Square, Broadway and Thirty- fourth Street, Broadway Magazine, March 1899, 867.

enhance the hazy beauty and harmonious intermingling of nature and people. ἀ e orange and green trolley cars at the heart of his picture draw one’s eye to the center of the canvas, intensifying the beauty of the blue trees and blurred cityscape lying beyond snow-covered streets. Contrastingly, Luks accentuates the glare of electric light. ἀ e evenly spaced steel girders of the elevated appear unnatural in the landscape, dwarfing and individually framing the

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker horse-drawn cabs, contrasting the older, slower mode of transport with the clattering rapidity of trains passing above. In Night Scene, Luks provides an early demonstration of his interest in gritty, urban realism, an aspect of contemporary life avoided by Hassam. Herald Square was a decidedly modern place. Located along one side at the intersection of Broadway and Sixth Avenue stood the New York Herald building, where every election night crowds gathered to watch returns broadcast over electric signs. ἀ eir boisterous, jocular behavior enhanced the reputation of the square as a space conducive to informality sanctioned by the crowded anonymity. ἀ e presence of elevated train (after 1904, subway) lines assured the transformation of the square into New York’s premiere shopping district, epitomized by the relocation of Macy’s Department Store to the area in 1902. Herald Square represented modern New York transformed by the burgeoning growth of business, mass communication and transit networks, the novel (for 1899) illumination of the nighttime sky with commercial electric lights, and the concomitant jostling and mixing of various socioeconomic classes, a subject with strong appeal to Ashcan school artists.2 Luks’s approach also shares with the art photographs of Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946), such as The Glow of Night (1897; Metropolitan Museum of Art), an interest in pattern; as such, both artists underscore the experiential nature of contemporary urban living. By 1900 Luks began to consider himself a painter, encouraged by his colleagues in the Eight, notably Robert Henri, who had four canvases accepted into the official French government Salon the previous year and who celebrated the purchase of one of these, La Neige, by the Musée National du Luxembourg. Luks produced at least several pastels, including Breadline (1900; Corcoran Gallery of Art), Greeley Square—Wet Night (ca. 1900; location unknown), and Street Scene (1900; Portland Museum of Art, Maine), and at least three oil paintings, including, The Amateurs (1899; private collection), Bread Line (ca. 1900; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio), and Chess Players (Old Cosmopolitan Chess Club) (ca. 1900; Yale University Art Gallery). With John Sloan, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, and Maurice Prendergast, he began to exhibit work, showing a pastel titled Street Scene (fig. 6-2) between January 15 and February 24, 1900, at the Sixty-ninth Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.3 ἀi s chalk drawing, enlivened by primary color accents with a major secondary note of green, depicts children and dogs cavorting on an East Side street, where an organ grinder cranks out a tune on a cloth-covered hurdy-gurdy. ἀ e drawing evidences Luks’s training as a newspaper illustrator

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker

Fig. 6-2. Street Scene, 1899, pastel on illustration board, 15 5/8 by 29 inches. Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, Gift of James Augustine Healy.

adept at transcribing prima-facie observations into a skillful composition. Street Scene not only renders the cartoon environment of Hogan’s Alley as concrete reality, it further presents the tenements as teeming with youthful spirit, foreshadowing later paintings such as The Spielers of 1905 and offering a view diametrically opposed to the reform photographs of Jacob Riis. Discerning critics noticed this novel approach. In a May 1900 article in the Bookman, aptly titled “ἀ e New Leaders in American Illustration,” Regina Armstrong commented: Mr. Luks sees nature with warmth and vitality. . . . ἀ e children of the East Side attract him and through the fruit carts and local stands he procures an entertainment for them that engages their unaffected friendliness and consequent ease as unconscious models. . . . ἀ e sincerity and actuality that Messrs. Glackens, Shinn, and Luks impose in the vibrant expositions of the masses of life are truly American in their originality and treatment. ἀ e obviousness of a native art is surely beginning to be recognized. (Armstrong, 244–251) For his part, Luks continued to draw voraciously, filling his notebook with sketches that same year and a second notebook by 1915. His love of drawing is

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker evident in a commission received upon the recommendation of William Glackens to provide illustrations for the works of Charles Paul de Kock, published by the Boston-based firm of Frederick J. Quinby. A contemporary of Balzac, de Kock specialized in popular, risqué novels about the Parisian demimonde set during the Bourbon Restoration. Quinby Company planned to issue a complete set of de Kock’s translated works in fifty volumes, ranging from leather-bound deluxe editions to less-expensive versions, all with etchings and photogravure reproductions of drawings (Bullard, 90–93). In addition to Luks, Glackens contributed work to thirteen volumes, John Sloan contributed fifty-three etchings and fifty-four drawings, while Everett Shinn contributed illustrations to two volumes. ἀ e project proved costly, and by 1907 Quinby Company declared bankruptcy. An etching by Luks and three pen-and-ink drawings reproduced as photogravure plates appear in volume one of Gustave, published in 1904. A ribald tale of romantic misadventures akin to Moll Flanders or Tom Jones, Gustave relates the escapades of the title’s hero, whose uncle, Colonel Moranval Saint-Réal, has sent the young man to the estate of Monsieur de Berly to meet Aurélie, the spouse selected for him. Upon arriving, Gustave encounters de Berly’s wife, the beautiful Julie, with whom he is instantly smitten. An arbor-enclosed billiard room conveniently allows the couple to tryst nightly until caught by the cuckold husband, whereupon Gustave flees and takes refuge with a peasant family—not, however, before seducing one of their daughters, Marie-Jeanne Lucas. ἀ e family has a second daughter, Suzon, and Gustave succeeds in seducing her as well. Having his way, Gustave leaves for Paris in hopes of finding Julie there. Arriving at one in the morning, Gustave determines to lodge at the home of Lise, a laundress whom he previously romanced. Recalling her street but not her house, he randomly bangs on doors in hopes that Lise might answer. Mistaking Gustave for her lover, a voluptuous woman appears at a second-story window and assures him that her husband is away. She only realizes her error just as the night watch arrives, forcing Gustave to flee across rooftops and gutters until, by sheer luck, he pounds on a door that opens to reveal Lise, who quickly takes him in. ἀ e next morning Gustave sends her to fetch his friend Olivier. When he arrives, they feast and drink with their girlfriends for several days until money runs out. Gustave saves the day after prevailing upon a former innkeeper to provide them with a meal, while Olivier cons wine from an unsuspecting merchant. As their feast draws to an intimate climax, Gustave’s uncle,

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker Colonel Moranval, knocks at the door. Not wanting to be caught, Gustave and Olivier lock the women in a wardrobe while Gustave feigns illness. But the wily uncle discovers their ruse and orders Gustave home, where he resolves to behave himself. Gustave’s restless nature prevails, however, and one night while returning from the theater he spies Suzon. She has forsaken her parents and journeyed to Paris seeking Gustave. For several weeks Gustave keeps her hidden. Meanwhile, the unsuspecting uncle, believing Gustave to have reformed, arranges a new marriage partner, the beautiful Fonbelle Grancière, with whom Gustave soon becomes infatuated. Eventually, the colonel discovers Suzon, whom he immediately remits to the charitable care of a remote institution. When Gustave discovers Suzon missing, he sets out to look for her but en route spies a carriage transporting Mme. Aurélie, her new husband, and the long-absent Julie de Berly. Julie and Gustave reunite in the garden pavilion of Aurélie’s estate, but just as they are about to sleep together Mme. Aurélie and her husband arrive, desiring to sleep in the cool of the pavilion and forcing Gustave to hide under the bed. After they doze off, Gustave seizes the opportunity to escape but awakens the household, who think robbers have invaded. In the ensuing melee, a fire erupts and Gustave escapes, while Julie is horribly burned, the one moralistic note in an otherwise amoral novel. As daylight breaks, Gustave, who in hasty flight mistakenly grabs Julie’s wardrobe, returns to Paris dressed in drag. A drunken merchant now forces his attentions on Gustave, who escapes into the shop of a pretty young woman. Gustave slams the door behind him as the reader is left to deduce what happens next. ἀ ere is no surviving record of how specific assignments were determined for the project envisioned by the Quinby Company. But the tales of love and subsequent abandonment echo, in some respects, the upheaval Luks experienced in his own life as he planned and drew illustrations for this novel. Arriving in New York in early spring of 1896, Luks soon fell in love with Annabelle Delanoy, whose mother ran the rooming establishment where he stayed (Art Digest, November 15, 1933, 6). Yet his brother, Will, stole Annabelle away from George and subsequently married her. A few years afterward, Luks married the daughter of a former Philadelphia newspaper colleague, but then abandoned her and fled to Paris after she became pregnant with their child. Following his return to New York City in 1904 and subsequent divorce, Luks courted Emma Louise Noble, sister to John Noble, an alcoholic artist and carousing companion from his Paris days.

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker Whether or not these personal circumstances influenced his drawings, Luks decided to illustrate four sexually charged incidents. ἀ e first drawing, Ah, You’ve Come at Last, Young Man, was an etching for the frontispiece to the book. ἀ e plate depicts a half-length view of two gentlemen standing confidentially close, the young protagonist at the left and the rotund Monsieur de Berly towering over him at the right. Both appear as prosperous aristocrats with coiffed hair, bushy sideburns, and high-collar jackets over ruffled shirts. Caricatured as a well-fed bourgeois with paunchy stomach and large, pointed nose, de Berly stares intently with rounded, bulging eyes at Gustave, raising his left arm slightly toward him as if anxious to make the acquaintance of the man he intends his niece to marry. Wearing a surprised expression, Gustave loosely holds out the parted fingers of his right hand while returning de Berly’s gaze. ἀ e finely executed, crosshatched lines of this etching—a technique probably taught to Luks by John Sloan—aptly convey the intense magnanimity of de Berly’s personality as well as his somewhat oafish wit, and the reader instantly grasps that the monsieur will soon regret the confidence he seems so eager to place in Gustave. Luks portrayed the young roué with a handsome but slightly doughy face and chin, suggestive of his dissipations and future escapades. ἀ e etching is an accomplished piece that develops both a sense of drama and intrigue with only two characters. Luks signed the plate in the upper right corner and received additional acknowledgment on the cover protecting the image where, printed in red ink, the caption references the corresponding text page noting, “original etching by George B. Luks.” In terms of setting and period costume, Great Heavens! It Isn’t He! (fig. 6-3) is the most fully realized of the four drawings. A narrow, darkened medieval street creates a believable setting of early-nineteenth-century Paris. Standing below the barred door, Gustave wears rustic, baggy trousers, waistcoat, and hat, a makeshift ensemble he wore in fleeing the countryside. Distant gendarmes impart a believable sense of depth while conveying the vast, labyrinthine character of the ancient Parisian neighborhood. ἀ e young woman poking her head out a second-story window exhibits the characteristic brazenness of a Parisian grisette. Copyrighted 1904, this drawing was created shortly after Luks returned from Paris subsequent to abandoning his first wife. During that trip, Luks tussled with the Paris police after shooting out the electric lights of a café and drew a self-portrait grabbing his crotch while exposing himself to a pair of grisettes walking the boulevard, deportment indicative of a libertine

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker

Fig. 6-3. Great Heavens! It Isn’t He! photogravure of original ink drawing, 5 1/16 by 3 9/16 inches, The Works of Charles Paul de Kock. With a General Introduction by Jules Claretie, Gustave, vol. 1, between pages 122 and 123.

spirit not unlike that of the fictional Gustave. Memories of such experiences may lie behind this illustration. Another ten years elapsed before Luks published additional drawings. In 1905 he would paint some of his greatest and most characteristic pictures, including Bleecker and Carmine Streets, New York (Milwaukee Art Museum), Hester Street (Brooklyn Museum), The Little Milliner (Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio), The Old Duchess (Metropolitan Museum of Art), The Spielers (Addison Gallery of American Art), and The Wrestlers (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston),

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker insightful portraits and streetscapes of the Lower East Side. On February 3, 1908, Luks, together with his colleagues in the Eight—Robert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, and Arthur B. Davies—achieved long-sought-after recognition when they challenged the near monopoly of the National Academy of Design through their widely publicized exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery and its subsequent national tour. While declining to participate in the first Exhibition of Independent Artists held between April 1 and 27, 1910, Luks busied himself preparing for his first solo show at the Macbeth Gallery, held between April 14 and 27, and began receiving favorable recognition from the New York press. In 1911 he also exhibited with the American Watercolor Society. By the summer of 1912 Luks was sufficiently prosperous to move with his second wife, Emma Louise Noble, to an airy, light-filled home in upper Manhattan at Edgecombe Road and Jumal Place in the vicinity of 170th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where in nearby High Bridge Park he executed numerous paintings, pastels, and mixed-media pictures. ἀ e following year he participated in the International Exhibition of Modern Art (Armory Show) and held a solo exhibition at the Kraushaar Galleries, an association that would last until 1924. ἀ e watershed Armory Show would introduce major currents of contemporary European artistic expression, including works by Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse, to New Yorkers. Measured against such paintings, the Ashcan school realists seemed timid and conventional. Shinn did not participate. Henri showed three oils, while Glackens’s three entries, although showing signs of Impressionist color, were equally conventional. More original were the works of Lawson, Prendergast, and Davies. Sloan exhibited five etchings and two Ashcan subjects, Sunday Girls Drying Their Hair and McSorley’s Ale House. Luks exhibited three oils, A Philosopher, Pennsylvania Dutch Woman, and Four O’clock, and ten animal studies drawn at the Bronx Zoo in 1904. Yet although he ranted against modernism and new art theories, Luks began to employ expressive, less optical color and broader, flatter forms while continuing to emphasize in his drawings a feeling for immediacy expressed in rapid strokes with pentimenti, the visible traces of changes in composition, remaining evident on the page. ἀ ese same qualities he would bring to his published sketches in Vanity Fair and New Yorker throughout the 1910s and 1920s. When he held a solo show in April 1914 at the Kraushaar Galleries, Luks included twenty drawings of horses and polo subjects, preliminary studies for a large canvas titled The Stroke (alternately known as The Polo Game). Luks

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker selected five of these as his first contribution to the July 1914 issue of Vanity Fair, inaugurating a twenty-year association with the magazine that would extend posthumously until 1934.4 Luks continued to submit to Vanity Fair every other year until 1920, after which time he contributed drawings annually, his last regular effort appearing in the October 1929 edition. ἀr ee months after his death, the magazine published twelve drawings of turn-of-the-century New York saloons and drinking establishments collectively titled Scenes of Revelry in Old New York and originally intended as illustrations for O Keg America, a book by Benjamin de Casseres. While contributing to Vanity Fair, after 1925 Luks simultaneously offered occasional sketches to the New Yorker. Unlike the Vanity Fair drawings that fill an entire page and constitute a special feature, the seven works appearing in the New Yorker are chiefly marginal notations enhancing a column of local news titled “Goings On About Town.” Luks submitted thirty-five entries to Vanity Fair, each of which contains five or six drawings grouped under the heading of a specific topic, including sketches made during his student days in Paris, sports, and the burlesque. But his predominant interest lay in presenting American character types, including artists and bohemians, street kids, and the pretentious phonies of academia. Whereas his earlier illustrations for Puck, Truth, the New York World, and the Verdict certainly include satire, these are less acerbic in tone. Accompanied by precise captions reflecting a sardonic wit, the keen observations of character captured in these Vanity Fair sketches reflect the aesthetic requirements of Vanity Fair editors, whose magazine catered to an up-scale, sophisticated clientele. ἀ e magazine’s editors took pride in the fact that as a celebrated New York artist, Luks, whose work was now regularly reviewed by the New York Times and commanded several thousand dollars, would contribute to their journal. ἀ e witty, sometimes dry, often droll captions accompanying his drawings shape their interpretation, and the continual reappearance of these in the magazine over a period of years indicates that Vanity Fair’s readers enjoyed the sophisticated humor, whether directed at society types, children, characters from radio or the theater, or ordinary citizens. Sport is the topic of seven Vanity Fair entries, and the wry attitude toward these drawings is perhaps best evident in Some Can’t and Some Canter, subtitled The Highly Colored Ingredients of a Nut Sunday, Bridled Horses and Unbridled Sketches. ἀ ough rudimentary and dashed off in somewhat cursory fashion, these drawings manage to convey traits such as the girth of a hefty

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker woman riding sidesaddle upon a much leaner horse, the unrestrained sprit of a mount bucking his paunchy rider, the ungainly posture of a fat gentleman puffing a cigar atop his steed, and the rivalry between two men galloping side by side. ἀ e ten sketches are positioned around a centered text laden with sarcasm: Amateur judges of horse flesh could hardly do better—in pursuit of fuller knowledge—than to spend a Sunday morning, during the burning summer, in contemplation of the bridal path in Central Park. . . . Mr. Devereux Milburn—supposed to know something of horsemanship—might learn, on the bridle path, much that is new and original about the polo seat. . . . More than anything else, weight is the sine qua non of a rider’s equipment in Central Park. ἀ e percheron type of horse is, we are told, no longer in favor, but the percheron type of rider seems to be growing every day in number and in bulk. ἀ e wonder is that the typical little Central Park mare is not put entirely out of business, and that she can go on, day after day, like that Christian mother of old, “bearing her burdens bravely and never letting her tender care cease toward those she-bears [sic].” Luks most probably had the text supplied by someone else given that a similarly themed set of four drawings published in 1920 are captioned with sarcastic verses written by George S. Chappell. Yet he consented to having his work interpreted in this fashion. Clearly the editors of Vanity Fair thought they could safely poke fun at the foibles of upper-class riders without alienating their subscribers. ἀi s repeated emphasis, in 1916 and again in 1920, upon unfit riders and their pomposity raises questions why Luks felt drawn to interpreting them in this fashion. A partial answer may be found in the rather exclusive use and purpose of the Central Park bridal path providing, as it did, a place for New York society to exercise their mounts while displaying their status, an activity striking at the heart of the debate over the proper use and identity of the park. Ever since 1858, when Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) and Calvert Vaux (1824–1895)submitted their Greensward design conceptualizing the park as a place for contemplation and spiritual uplift and received city approval, debate raged over who might properly use the premises. Wealthy New Yorkers saw the park as their rightful preserve. But as immigrant populations increased

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker and sought relief from stifling living conditions, political bosses began to realize that a democratized Central Park would benefit their political machine. By the turn of the century, Tammany leaders regularly organized May picnics for Irish, German, Italian, and “Colored” tenement children, where they ate free box lunches and partook of gallons of ice cream while their voting-age parents were reminded who provided the festivities; by the time he visited in 1905, Henry James could write in The American Scene that the park “showed the fruit of the foreign tree as shaken down there with a force that smothered everything else” (Rosenzweig and Blackmar, 390, 406–407). As far back as the 1870s complaints were registered against “tramps and other unpleasant people” lodging in Central Park, panhandling, or making a quick buck picking and selling dandelion greens; the democratic elbow-rubbing with persons of different socioeconomic backgrounds furthered the informal social mixing of the sexes through such games as croquet and mixed-doubles tennis (Rosenzweig and Blackmar, 325–326). Luks already demonstrated his admiration for the vitality of tenement dwellers in his Hogan’s Alley cartoons and Verdict drawings and certainly sympathized with the use of Central Park by people of all classes. As a prosperous artist living in High Bridge Park, he delighted in painting the panoply of people out enjoying that public space. By 1916 the Central Park bridal path was one of the few areas left that retained an aura of social exclusiveness. ἀ e opportunity for Luks to use his powers of observation in rapidly executed sketches poking fun at well-heeled riders utilizing the public space of Central Park would have proven irresistible. Luks further honed his sarcasm in seven sketches reproduced in the July 1927 issue of Vanity Fair under the title When the Golfer Isn’t Golfing, Quaint Creatures, In and About the Club House (Vanity Fair, July 1927, 67; fig. 6-4). ἀ e satire was timely in 1927. ἀ e Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) had been established less than ten years earlier. Where in 1890 only 80 golf courses existed in the entire United States, by 1930 that number had grown to 6,000, driven in part by the expanding popularity of the game among businessmen, stars of the silver screen, and the growing prize money offered in cup matches.5 ἀ e year Luks drew his golf sketches marked the official inauguration of the Ryder Cup, the award of a solid gold trophy and five pounds sterling prize money in a matchup between the best players of Britain and the United States held in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the various characters in this series, Luks emphasized the peculiarity of golfing attire: knickers, knee socks, argyle sweaters or sleeveless vests, soft caps, and shoes, de rigueur

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Fig. 6-4. When the Golfer Isn’t Golfing, Quaint Creatures In and About the Club House, Vanity Fair, July 1927, 67.

apparel for gentlemen playing the sport. Over and above the outlay required to purchase clubs and pay greens fees and club dues, such costly attire set players apart, indicating a sport engaged in by the well-to-do, their special, if not quite exclusive, province. And while the game required skill, one did not need to be athletic or particularly youthful to play, as in polo. If not quite aristocratic, golf in the 1920s maintained an aura of sophisticated leisure appropriate for those with money, soon becoming the favorite sport of successful businessmen

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker whose newfound wealth provided the means and leisure to participate in a sport whose pedigree retained an association with aristocracy. ἀ e subject proved ideal for Vanity Fair. One Luks sketch depicts “Horace” standing idly with both hands thrust into his pockets while sporting a pair of rounded, thick eyeglasses. With these, and aided by a handicap of twenty, Horace, the caption informs, has won a cup and may now retire from the sport. In the center of the page Luks depicts the portly, middle-aged “Auld Reekie” seated in a club chair, a drink in one hand and puffing a cigar. A caption beneath the drawing explains his name, for although the greatest sitting golfer in the club, he “finds consolation in spotting members who have a bottle of the real stuff cached somewhere.” Similarly, “Reggie,” although appearing dashingly handsome in his golf duds, affects a dramatic pose consistent with his acting profession. In one of his more vicious drawings appearing along the middle left of the page, Luks renders a homophobic depiction of a lanky golfer striding along in a mincing gait above a caption reading, “Just now he is a bit miffed because someone has asked him if he is going to enter the ladies’ tournament.” Luks drew additional sports sketches for Vanity Fair. As a youth he invented a mythical persona through his boxing aliases “Socko Sam,” “Chicago Whitey,” and “Mike the Morgue.” In this respect, it is interesting to contrast the characterizations presented in When the Golfer Isn’t Golfing with depictions of wrestling (The Wrestlers. A Page of Grips, Holds, and Falls [Vanity Fair, February 1924, 59]), boxing (The Progress of a Prize Fight [Vanity Fair, December 1920, 49]), and baseball (Batter Up! [Vanity Fair, August 1922, 70]). Baseball had become the “all-American” sport by the 1920s, with players such as George “Babe” Ruth (1895–1948) and Ty Cobb (1886–1961) rising from adverse circumstances to achieve star status. Ruth’s saloon-keeper father abandoned the boy to the care of a reformatory and orphanage, yet by the age of nineteen “the Babe” entered the major leagues, leading the Boston Red Sox to a World Series victory in 1918 before his transfer to the New York Yankees, where his home run–hitting prowess and crowd-drawing capacity spurred the team on to construct a new stadium in 1923, the year after Luks completed his sketches. Raised on a farm in rural Georgia, Cobb experienced a disciplined middle-class childhood, not entirely unlike the one Luks enjoyed in rural Pennsylvania, yet marred by the stigma of his father’s murder by his mother just at the moment when the young Cobb made his debut with the Detroit Tigers. By 1922, the year Luks drew him, Cobb achieved his 3,000th hit, and

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker the Detroit Tigers nearly won the pennant. Other players depicted by Luks for his 1922 Vanity Fair spread included Eddie Collins (1887–1951), famous for stealing bases but whose career was tainted by the Chicago White Sox World Series scandal of 1919; Emil Frederick “Irish” Meusel (1893–1963); Jesse Barnes (1892–1961); and Heinie Groh (1889–1968), all of them New York Giants. Luks’s drawings of these players are once again generic, lacking the intricacies of costume and physiognomy, as well as the irony, of his golf sketches. What they do emphasize are the athletic torsos of the players intensely engaged in various maneuvers, including hitting, bunting, pitching, sliding into bases, and alertly waiting a turn to bat. ἀ e accompanying captions laud the way Cobb works his wrists and the bat, or the “terrific demonstration” put on by Ruth. Similarly heroic depictions are found in the boxing sketches for the December 1920 edition of Vanity Fair, where an anonymous fighter is shown at various times during a match, his muscular torso variously deployed in a series of moves ranging from a closed guard position to a countershift. Like baseball, during the 1920s boxing, or, more properly, prize fighting, underwent a transformation from an ragtag sport barely tolerated by the police to a contest enjoyed by vast crowds in well-lit, legitimate arenas, star boxers commanding celebrity status.6 One of the foremost boxers in the 1920s, and a close friend of Luks, Gene Tunney, struggled against challenging circumstances in his youth, as did baseball greats Ruth and Cobb, spending much of his time sparring at the Perry Athletic Club on the Lower East Side in Greenwich Village before entering the U.S. Marines and fighting with the American Expeditionary Force in France during the First World War while further developing his boxing skills.6 Handsome, athletic, and determined, Tunney struggled to overcome serious hand injuries before attaining the American light heavyweight championship, eventually rising to face off against and best Jack Dempsey for the world heavyweight title on September 23, 1926, before a crowd estimated at 135,000. Where and when Tunney and Luks became friends is not known, but a few years after he drew the boxing sketches, Luks celebrated their friendship with a self-portrait sketch deliberately signed “Gene Tunney/1925” appearing in an article titled “ἀ e Illustrious George” (New Yorker, May 9, 1925, 13–14). Five years later, Luks also painted the famed boxer. Figures appearing in The Wrestlers. A Page of Grips, Holds, and Falls share with Luks’s baseball drawings an emphasis upon physical prowess and exertion accompanied by approbatory captions. Many were probably drawn from life as early as 1905, since they were made as studies for his famed painting The Wrestlers (1905; Museum of

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker Fine Arts, Boston) and the aesthetic differences between these and later sports sketches are obvious. “Catch-Hold,” for example, depicts a wrestler grappling with his opponent in a maneuver causing his adversary to flip upside down atop his head, echoing the composition of Luks’s well-known painting. “HeadHold” (the original graphite drawing measuring 10 1/16by 7 11/16inches, titled The Wrestlers, and dated circa 1905 in the collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor), depicts two wrestlers compactly pressed together, one kneeling in a crouching posture while his opponent leans over and pushes against him. “Heavyweights at Play” is nearly identical to a black conté crayon sketch dated to circa 1905 in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the only difference being variations in shading about the chest and thighs of both figures. Like the baseball sketches, these boxing and wrestling drawings possess an immediacy that reveals Luks’s firsthand interest in the sport and the affinity he felt with their hardscrabble heroes in contrast to the more elitist and remote figures of the golfing world, whom he ridicules by means of costume, pose, and satiric commentary. Luks submitted several sketches of children. Examples include The Children’s Hour in Washington Square (Vanity Fair, December 1921, 49; fig. 6-5) and The Gas House Kids of New York (Vanity Fair, March 1925, 64; fig. 6-6). ἀ e drawings present two varied groups, the mix of middle-class and working-class kids found in Washington Square and those of the Lower East Side, forming a link with his paintings of children from the period 1905–1912 and his continuing interest during the 1920s in painting children in such canvases as Little Girl in Top Hat (1920; private collection), The Little Lady (1921; Albany Institute of History and Art), The Haney Kid (1923; San Diego Museum of Art), and Boy with Baseball (1925; Metropolitan Museum of Art). ἀ e title, The Children’s Hour in Washington Square, comes from the opening stanza of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, first published in the Atlantic Monthly in September 1860, lauding the late afternoon hour when the poet would affectionately play with his three girls, grave Alice, laughing Allegra, and Edith with the golden hair, an appropriate reference given Luks’s affectionate rapport with children. ἀ e majority of these sketches depict little girls, ranging from blond-haired innocents to shy but sophisticated-looking youth. Washington Square was an ideal location to seek out such children. Luks’s colleague and friend William Glackens lived at 3 Washington Square North, and his children, Ira (born in 1907) and Lenna (born in 1913), willingly modeled for Luks or played unself-consciously with their friends in the

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Fig. 6-5. The Children’s Hour in Washington Square, Vanity Fair, December 1921, 49.

square. In the opening decades of the twentieth century, Washington Square underwent transformation from a once exclusive outpost evident in the brick town houses bordering the north end of the square to a working-class and immigrant community on the south side of the square. ἀi s mix was evident as well on the square’s parklike playground, where children from comfortable homes rubbed shoulders with first-generation arrivals, the very diversity of types illustrated by Luks. While Glackens’s paintings of Washington Square hint at this rich diversity, they often depict distant, panoramic views. His

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker

Fig. 6-6. The Gas House Kids of New York, Vanity Fair, March 1925, 64.

drawing for the cover illustration of the April 16, 1910, Collier’s, for example, presents a generalized, panoramic view. Contrastingly, Luks ignores the square itself to focus solely on the children, the better to study and appreciate their distinct personalities. In Luks’s sketches, each figure is given a first name, though in all probability these are fictitious, chosen not so much for accuracy as for expressing something of the unique personality of each child. A brief statement further interprets the character type and, in some cases, the ethnicity of the

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker child portrayed. “Angelina” features a young girl with a pageboy haircut, her name and complexion indicating her to be an immigrant child, in contrast to “Gwendolyn” or “Katherine and Ellen,” their fancy coats, dresses, and stylish hats indicating their comfortable backgrounds. “Margie” appears scrappy and heedless of her appearance, a knowingly wise smirk upon her lips. She may have been intended by Luks to reflect an Irish American child in keeping with his earlier, stereotyped depictions of pugilists in Puck and Truth, since the caption declares her “the undisputed female 82-pound ringside champion of the square.” A comparison between “Toodles” and The New Shoes (Joslyn Art Museum), painted that same year, demonstrates the relationship between such sketches and Luks’s painting. “Toodles” holds a dustpan in his right hand, while The New Shoes depicts the experience of a toddler attempting to walk for the first time in new footwear. ἀ e two compositions are nearly indistinguishable, including the ankle-length smock and tousled hair of both figures, demonstrating how Luks’s drawings informed his painting and revealing the subtle ways in which he altered compositions by judicious editing of superfluous objects while freely inventing or transposing the settings to suit his purpose. Similarly, “Katherine and Ellen” reveals the artist’s delight in capturing salient details of two children decked out in springtime finery leaning against a railing in Washington Square Park. Both seem distracted by something or someone off to their right and turn their heads, revealing their kewpie doll features and the stylish elegance of their hats. Luks obviously found them quite the young charmers, for a second drawing titled “Dorothy” (undated; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution) clearly relates to this 1921 sketch and depicts one girl eating an ice cream cone. ἀ e caption beneath the Vanity Fair drawing informs us the girls are discussing boys, whom they decide are “hopeless,” asserting, “Katherine and Ellen will probably arrive at this same conclusion again some twenty years later.” The Gas House Kids of New York depicts children from the slightly different, much more scrappy neighborhood around East Twentieth Street between First and Second avenues, close to the East River locale so nicknamed because of the many gas tanks dotting the area. Six drawings depict children, but one portrays a mongrel dog named “Hinky Dink,” a reference to Luks’s own pet. ἀ e several sketches variously represent a boy playing craps, a newspaper peddler, a neighborhood tough rolling up his shirtsleeves in preparation for a fight, two “show-off ” roller skaters, and a boy seated on a bench waiting to

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker play baseball. Interestingly enough, all are adolescent boys in contrast to the girls and toddlers in the Washington Square series. Despite their hardscrabble tenement origins, they appear fairly clean cut and somewhat generic, lacking keen individual characterization in facial features. While it may be that the summary execution results from the artist quickly, perhaps surreptitiously, jotting their images down on paper, an interview Luks gave around this time to Edward H. Smith, published as “Kids ἀ at Luks Paint,” provides an alternative explanation. Luks lamented: “New York children are more sophisticated now than in older days, but they lack the spontaneity, keenness and force that were once there. . . . I’ve been studying our children for more than thirtyfive years and putting them on canvas. . . . Many changes have taken place. ἀ ere has been a great change in the races, as you know. ἀ e East Side, where I and others used to go, has lost a great deal of its interest. ἀir ty years ago there was that mixture of peoples there which gave contrast and variety.”7 ἀi s emerging homogeneity is increasingly evident in such paintings as Boy with Baseball and Little Girl in Top Hat. Yet while bemoaning the changes on the Lower East Side, Luks simultaneously discovered throughout the 1920s new subjects that both epitomized the era and attracted his perceptive eye: modern artists and art critics, radio and lecture personalities, the world of burlesque, and speakeasies. Given his once prominent role as New York’s “bad boy” in art and, after 1913, the rise to prominence of modernism, it is not surprising that seven out of thirty-five pages of drawings Luks executed for Vanity Fair reference changes in the contemporary New York art scene. His initial exploration of this topic appeared in the July 1920 issue as Bohemians and the Quest Eternal (fig. 6-7), a jab at the transformation of Greenwich Village from the poor, working-class, immigrant neighborhood he once knew into an avant-garde bohemian enclave. In six sketches, Luks lampoons the desire for freedom and creativity, and the striving after authentic atmosphere. “Freedom” portrays Myrtle, affecting a large eyeshade atop her head while seated with palette and brush in hand. Her gauzy outfit and the mocking phrase, “the modest girl,” written in Luks’s own hand beneath the sketch, illustrate the liberties with accepted standards of art she is accused of taking. “Self-Expression” depicts Sonia, a thoroughly modern woman with bobbed hair, cigarette dangling from her lips, and pet parrots. She stands before her sculpting table as she models a piece titled “My Man,” while a second abstract creation rests on the floor. Luks clearly expresses his disapproval of both her art and effort by pairing his sketch with a caption

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Fig. 6-7. Bohemians and the Quest Eternal, Vanity Fair, July 1920, 42.

comparing Sonia’s creative activity to atrocious acts committed by a German army corps during the First World War. It is odd that Luks reacted so strongly against young, free-spirited artists given his bohemian youth in Paris and even his later years as a newspaper reporter in Philadelphia and New York City, where he affected a bizarre mode of dress. But in the autumn of 1920, a few months after his illustrations appeared in Vanity Fair, Luks began teaching at the Art Students League, an experience affording direct exposure to both the contemporary art scene and

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker art students. During the several months prior to his teaching, Luks earnestly searched for new inspiration away from New York City as his marriage began to flounder and his bouts of heavy drinking increased. He found what he was looking for in the streams and harsh seacoast of Nova Scotia, where he produced numerous oils and strikingly original watercolors exhibited between January 5 and 24, 1920, at the Kraushaar Galleries. ἀi s dramatic change in location and motif would be the first of several such detours throughout the 1920s, including Boston and the Pennsylvania coal country, as his marriage ended in divorce and his severe drinking required institutionalization in a sanatorium. He distanced himself more and more from the experience of his early art studies, so much so that by 1923 he would lecture art students at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to avoid the bohemian lifestyle: “ἀ e world has been fed the ‘La Boheme’ legend and does not know its artists. ἀ e journeyman artist has less time for scandalous behavior than a deacon. ἀ e cheap, bohemian life is a horrible joke; this cheap bohemian anarchy-poof! Study, master technique, have courage to paint things as you see them. . . . ἀ ere will always be cults and ‘movements,’ but those who patronize them are often the sort of people who would not know what to eat if you took away the breakfast food advertisements” (Philadelphia Ledger, Luks Papers, Microfilm Reel NLU-1, frame 126). It would seem, then, that although he produced many excellent and original pictures, and proved to be a popular teacher during his four years at the Art Students League, beneath his blustering, cocky exterior Luks retained a reserve of self-doubt about the lasting value of his own work in the face of the growing acceptance of European modernism and the increasing disarray of his private life. If so, Bohemians, and the Quest Eternal provides an early indication of this shift in attitude insofar as it manifested itself in sarcastic expressions aimed at the art world that only deepened in ensuing years. A year later, Luks contributed six drawings under the title Seen on Any Free Day in Any Art Gallery, tellingly appending the words, “Proving that the Paintings Are Decidedly Not the Only Incomprehensible ἀin gs in an Exhibit of Modern Art.” ἀ e title makes clear that various individuals have come to a gallery to view an exhibition of “incomprehensible” modern painting. Yet far more unnerving, and in Luks’s opinion ripe for satire, are the persons who seriously attempt to engage the artwork before them. Six individuals are represented. “ἀ e Poet-Aesthetic-Critic” wears a long smock, head cocked slightly to the left while studying the artwork on the wall and scribbling notes on a paper. ἀ e person’s ambiguous gender—either a woman with bobbed hair

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker and long, straight skirt or a man in a shapeless ankle-length coat with bangs parted at the sides—may be a deliberate impugning of the figure’s masculinity and, by implication, a diminishment of his views on art, which the caption notes are replete with Freudian theories concerning the “inward urge” and the “semi-subconscious subjective.” A similar disparagement is evident in “Affinities” from the Bohemians, and the Quest Eternal series of July 1920, where the young man in flowing pants, loose-fitting jacket, and flashy black tie (not unlike the garb Luks himself affected as a bohemian artist in Paris) is referred to as the “so-called man,” who happens to be an interior decorator. Verbal emasculation was a tactic utilized by Luks’s friends the critics Frederick James Gregg and Charles Fitzgerald, who first championed the work of the Eight and in 1903 spoke of Ashcan work in terms of “virility” and “masculinity,” in contrast to the “delicate sensibilities” of National Academy of Design artists.8 Yet if Luks ridiculed modern artists, he also poked fun at conservative academic painters. ἀr ee figures caricatured in Seen on Any Free Day represent that old guard, persons of discriminating taste who undoubtedly possess the financial means to purchase and collect art; one is specifically identified as such. Past his prime, “ἀ e Old Guard” represents the bygone taste for the Hudson River School and George Inness (1825–1894). Balding, bending at the knees, and conservatively dressed, the scowling “Old Guard” is described as having tenure on the hanging committee of the Century Club, a description recalling the many times Luks’s own works were rejected for exhibition by hanging juries of the National Academy of Design. Similarly, “ἀ e Measurer” attempts to gauge the anatomic exactitude of the portrait in front of him, criticizing shortcomings of perspective, proportion, and anatomy, a classic exercise one would expect of someone trained in the French academies and their counterpart American art institutions. Luks passionately believed that all academicians were dead, and in testament to this belief he penned his own epitaph: “Here Lies George Luks, At Last An Academician.”9 He remained proud of his fight against the constraints of the National Academy and had no desire to retrogress to old academic formulas. Bemoaning the lack of patronage for American artists, Luks vociferously complained to the New York Tribune, “People should be interested in the art of their time instead of looking at pictures of Minerva manicuring her nails. ἀ ere are lots of painting men in this country who need encouragement and there is a type which needs discouragement. . . . Wealthy men should encourage these men who have arrived. ἀ ey should give them commissions as they do in other countries. . . . Americans should patronize

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker their own artists” (New York Tribune, February 16, 1923, Luks Papers, Microfilm Reel NLU-1, frame 128). ἀ e remaining sketches, “Lady Watercolorist” and “ἀ e Lover of the Nude,” show figures pondering works hung on the gallery wall. Closely related to this series are the seven drawings appearing in Vanity Fair (June 1924) under the dismissive title Like Brushers of Gentlemen’s Clothes—the Critics, described as “ἀ ose who have failed in art and literature.” While three caricatures portray opera or literary critics, the rest depict art reviewers. “ἀ e Discontented Visitor” is a foreign lecturer on porcelain who has taken up critiquing art, while another is “ἀ e Amateur Critic at Large.” ἀ e facetiously vulgar pronunciation of his name, Fulke Ffoulke, paraphrases Luks’s opinion of him. In calling for greater support for contemporary American artists, Luks walked a fine line, simultaneously encouraging his students to experiment while reigning in their creative freedom. What the Master Modernists Are Doing (Vanity Fair, December 1927, 93), Posing for Pay (Vanity Fair, August 1928, 61), and Artists That Bloom in the Spring (Vanity Fair, July 1928, 61) address this complex balancing act. Master Modernists is but a crude attack upon contemporary sculpture containing drawings parodying work resembling that of Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957), Gaston Lachaise (1882–1935), and Henri Matisse (1869–1954). Although intended to disparage such works, the Luks drawings provide important evidence of his awareness of contemporary trends in plastic expression while revealing the extent of his comprehension, or lack thereof, of such art. At the upper left of the page, a drawing of a charging doughboy offers a cleaver jibe at the then-current national mania to erect monuments commemorating veterans of the First World War, with realism being de rigueur for such civic sculpture. Luks’s forte, however, lay in painting rather than sculpture, and while his classes at the Art Students League were chaotic, students learned to draw the live model.10 When he left the League in 1924 to start the George Luks School of Painting, his intent was forthrightly indicated in the school brochure: ἀ e George Luks School of Paintings was founded . . . in response to the spontaneous demand for a virile school of Living American Art. With the present trend in art to modern forms, more serious artists and students feel a need for a center . . . of frank discussion of the viewpoint and philosophy of our present day. . . . It is George Luks’ policy to

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker develop the individuality of the student and to give him a sound knowledge of the craft of painting, building up each student with sympathetic and wise counsel so that they see and think for themselves.11 ἀ e text implies that serious students should desire something more than modern art, and that mastery came from painting the live model, often costumed, which compositions Luks personally critiqued. ἀr oughout the 1920s Luks further delighted in giving public demonstrations of painting while excoriating modernism, frequently punctuating his lecture with sips of his “favorite medium,” as he referred to liquor. His subjects for these lectures were often unique: a ballerina, an actor, and a Japanese model. Posing for Pay playfully jibes at such “types” who sat for modeling gigs. ἀ e “Old Man With Whiskers,” for example, looks suspiciously like Luks’s canvas The Pawnbroker (after 1918). While his classes remained informal, Luks expected pupils to work hard. He disliked dilettantes and amateurs, making them the object of ridicule in Artists That Bloom in the Spring, where an ex-schoolteacher bends over her palette while closely examining the colors with her pince-nez. A florist standing opposite comically bows out her legs while standing before an easel and dabbling at portraits of her favorite flower. Two additional drawings on this page, The Visualist and The Bohemian, are also parodies, this last figure recalling Luks’s satire in Bohemians and the Quest Eternal. As with a few other entries he did for Vanity Fair, including Radio Talk and Talkers (Vanity Fair, October 1925, 60) and Listenin’ In (Vanity Fair, January 1929, 44), these seem to have been executed as group sketches for the purpose of illustrating a preselected theme in the magazine rather than individually drawn at various times while surreptitiously observing real people. Faces seem caricatured or retain their primary ovoid forms; feet tend to be pointy or otherwise absent; shading and volume are applied hastily and not always consistently. Occasionally, Luks provided individual sketches, as he did for the few New Yorker submissions that constitute drawings in the page margins for a column headlined “Goings On About Town.” Whether portraying women in their bathing suits or a more formally attired couple under a shaded umbrella relaxing on a bench at Coney Island (New Yorker, September 4, 1926, 10); a smartly dressed middle-aged matron standing on the sidewalk in her polka-dot frock and cloche hat, and grasping her purse (New Yorker, August 17, 1929, 6); or an otherwise respectable-looking gentleman bundled up in trench coat and

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker fedora, who stops to gaze at a playbill of burlesque nudie pin-ups (New Yorker, April 12, 1930, 10; March 7, 1931, 67), Luks records types that are immediately recognizable as urban residents one might also have chanced to encounter yet who remain absolute strangers. In addition to city streets, parks, and beaches, Luks enjoyed lounging about and recording people he observed at the New York Public Library, for among the many pages of Vanity Fair sketches, Half an Hour with America’s Worst Authors (Vanity Fair, October 1921, 53) provides a humorous look at various individuals surreptitiously observed. Based on the unique characteristics of their outward appearance, they are then given equally surreptitious identities revealed in the accompanying captions. One woman wears a swirl print pattern dress with dark collar, a blocklike black hat placed squarely atop her head. Her dark stockings, heavy shoes, and stray locks of hair at the back of her neck hint at her modest, workaday existence. As she reads she purses her lips, giving her a somewhat prudish appearance. Identified as Ethel Mansfield, “ἀ e Shepherd of Skyblue Gap,” Luks and Vanity Fair’s editors imagine her as the author of various love tales from the Kentucky hills. Similarly, “In His Name” portrays a round-headed, balding man, looking very much like George Bernard Shaw, with white beard and spectacles, who hunches over a large volume. Imagined as the Reverend Jabez McCracken, who writes on the Christian martyrs during Nero’s Rome, the caption highlights his particular facility, describing in lurid detail the lewd decadence of the imperial capital. Such images rely more on stereotype and caricature, similar to that practiced by Luks in his early cartoons for Puck and Truth and in Hogan’s Alley, though without the ethnic distortions evident in those images, and near the end of his career Luks reverted back to a formula he practiced several decades earlier. Among the various Vanity Fair sketches, Luks included two autobiographical sets of drawings. George Luks—In Paris (Vanity Fair, May 1916, 60; fig. 6-8) consists of important early Parisian drawings surviving from the time of his European travels during 1890, 1893, and 1902–1903, while Sight Seeing in a Sanatorium–de Luks (Vanity Fair, September 1924, 55; fig. 6-9) reflects his firsthand experience recovering from alcoholism while confined to an institution during 1921–1922. Commenting on George Luks—In Paris, Vanity Fair noted, “In these sketches one is particularly struck by the profusion of types, each one marked by its peculiar eccentricities of temperament and each with its character evoking peculiarity of dress. . . . Paris seems to have made George Luks more quick of eye and more certain of hand than he has ever been

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Fig. 6-8. George Luks--in Paris, Vanity Fair, May 1916, 60.

before.” Luks included six drawings—three of elderly women, including the concierge of his residence; one of a bourgeois couple; a typical image of a Parisian waiter in ankle-length white apron; and a Parisian belle. Captured in a few swift strokes of the crayon, “ἀ e Concierge” reveals an idiosyncratic physiognomy set off against the frills of her cap and scarf. Her aged counterpart, “ἀ e Street Sweeper,” imparts a no-nonsense air as she prepares to tackle chores. Already while a young student roaming Paris, Luks manifested a keen interest in depicting elderly women and common people, subjects that would typify

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker

Fig. 6-9. Sight Seeing in a Sanatorium–de Luks, Vanity Fair, September 1924, 55.

many of his later Ashcan paintings, such as Old Mary (ca. 1919, Milwaukee Art Museum) and An Old Pal (ca. 1915; Norton Museum of Art). Another drawing portrays a Madonna-like woman holding a babe while napping on a park bench, as a nun leads schoolgirls on promenade. ἀ e woman’s makeshift accommodation and rustic appearance hint she is, perhaps, a recent arrival from the country in search of work, and her juxtaposition with the uniformed children creates an image that is both poignant and picturesque. Yet the title, “ἀ e Little War Orphans in the Champs Elysées,” alludes to a more somber,

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker contemporary concern. Drawn a decade and a half earlier, and thus referencing the effects of the Franco-Prussian War, readers of the May 1916 issue of Vanity Fair immediately would have thought of the war then raging in France and the costly and prolonged siege of Verdun by German troops. While it would be another year before the United States entered the conflict, public sentiment already favored France and Britain. In deciding to contribute these drawings in May 1916, Luks not only recalled a congenial moment from his own youth, but he also made a show of patriotic feeling. Focusing as they do on ordinary persons rather than grandiose monuments or luminaries, these drawings touch at the heart of what was pleasurable, humane, and poignant about life in the French capital. ἀ e second autobiographical series, Sight Seeing in a Sanatorium–de Luks, appeared in the September 1924 edition of Vanity Fair, approximately two years after Luks was released from just such an institution and following his recuperation in Boston under the care of his patron and friend Mrs. Quincy Adams Shaw McKean (neé Margarett Sargent). ἀ e seven drawings that comprise Sight Seeing in a Sanatorium are each furnished with a case number, as if the patient’s symptoms were being clinically analyzed by examining the outward manifestation of their appearance, a technique attempted on the sick and incarcerated in the nineteenth century by the French romantic artist ἀ éodore Géricault (1791–1824). ἀ e assorted inmates form a motley crew. One tough-looking patient, “Case No. 2,” plants himself in a chair while smoking a cigarette and squinting. “As soon as he gets out,” the caption informs us, “he is going to get the guy who bumped him.” Another inmate, “Case No. 1,” suffering from an unspecified minor ailment, grins with glee while preparing to devour his next meal. “Case No. 5” walks about barefoot and in his hospital gown, armed with a seemingly endless supply of good cheer sufficient to drive everyone else to distraction. ἀ e remaining four inmates present more serious conditions, including nervous breakdowns, alcoholism, and jaundice. Sketched with varying degrees of finish, these drawings convey a sense of how Luks spent part of his own long confinement idling away empty hours. ἀ e editors doubtless intended the punning title as a clever word game, unaware, perhaps, of the trying circumstances Luks endured that served to inspire this series. Seven years after his sanatorium confinement, Luks returned to the theme of alcohol with a joyous sense of abandonment and nostalgia in two series of drawings, Speakeasy Scenes By George Luks (Vanity Fair, October 1929, 80–81)

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker and Old New York Drinking Places by George Luks (Vanity Fair, January 1934, 20–21), published posthumously. Well before 1929, Prohibition degenerated into a hopelessly unenforceable policy spurring on organized crime while causing middleclass and well-to-do Americans to break laws banning the production and consumption of alcohol. By 1929 even the respectable Vanity Fair would openly acknowledge the existence of nearly 32,000 “liquor parlors” in New York City, celebrating their existence by having Luks provide six sketches based on visits to such establishments while simultaneously mocking the straight-laced morality of Herbert Hoover in an accompanying article deriding the president. Luks did not attempt to gloss over the problems this surreptitious behavior created, and various drawings directly address the issue. “Police Protection” portrays two uniformed cops seated at the table of a speakeasy downing glasses of beer, while “Sixty-Eight Dollars” depicts a large, muscled goon presenting a liquor bill in that exorbitant amount to two younger and more delicate looking society men out for a night on the town. “Confirmed Drunkard” shows a stupefied, long-faced gentleman seated at a table with a glass in hand, his sad demeanor the effect of consuming ersatz alcohol. Perhaps these drawings were necessary to provide a modicum of moral cover lest artist and journal appear too openly hostile to the Volsted Act. Yet in other sketches, including “Artist At Ease,” Luks frankly depicts an artist (who does not resemble him) at a cabaret table laden with a whiskey bottle and glasses, while “A High-Hat Place” portrays a nattily uniformed maître d’ carrying a tray full of cocktail glasses and a champagne bucket under his arm. Such scenes present interesting, if not vicariously pleasurable, glimpses of the nightclub lifestyle. ἀ ey compare favorably with two sketches of Paris nightlife at the famed Café du Dome on the Boulevard Raspail, which Luks drew three years previously for the June 19, 1926, edition of the New Yorker. All convey a lively atmosphere and a sense that the artist actually visited such establishments and convincingly rendered what he observed. With the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president in November 1932 and the promised repeal of Prohibition, Luks came full circle, revisiting the saloon world of turn-of-the-century New York by creating a nostalgic series of book illustrations, something he last attempted in 1904. He conceived of making eleven grisaille sketches of famous New York drinking spots to accompany O Keg America! a planned book by Benjamin de Casseres celebrating the repeal of Prohibition with an affectionate look at the Gay Nineties. Although he succeeded in completing eleven grisaille renderings, Luks tragically ended

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker his life in a drunken brawl early on the morning of October 29, 1933, his body left in an alley near the Sixth Avenue El. Yet newspaper accounts reporting his death glossed over the actual circumstances by claiming he succumbed to a heart attack while out observing the effect of sunlight on that elevated railway structure. ἀ e eleven grisaille sketches each depict a unique locale. “ἀ e Haymarket in Sixth Avenue,” identified as “a trysting place of the seven deadly sins,” portrays gentlemen elegantly dressed in top hats and tuxedos, while at the left two buxom women in elaborately plumed hats sit at a table laden with bottles. Paddy the Pig’s at 50th and Sixth Avenue shows the obese proprietor belting out the popular, maudlin ditty “My Mother Was a Lady,” while at the bar sobbing men embrace one another. Football Night at Jack’s, facetiously subtitled Nothing But Touchdowns, has Jack himself subduing to unconsciousness rowdy customers with the aid of his fists. And Joel’s Famous Bohemia at 41st Street and Seventh Avenue depicts the tall, lanky owner standing beside a table decked with a white linen cloth and nearly a dozen bottles of liquor, as a woman rises to toast her companion. As reproduced in Vanity Fair, the pictures were accompanied by a glowing tribute written by de Casseres. “George Benjamin Luks, ‘Lusty Luks,’ . . . was a man straight out of the Dutch Renaissance. He has been called the American Frans Hals. . . . He here celebrates the restoration of the triumvirate—Bacchus, Gambrinus, and John Barleycorn— to plenary powers. Luks was always saluting Orgy. To him, life and art were orgy. ἀ e Cosmos to him was a wench; color, light, air, and water were mental and physical aphrodisiacs. Here you will find his whole aesthetics: movement and fidelity to his eye.” De Casseres observed Luks at work on these pictures, claiming that the artist seemed possessed by a kind of fury and demonic joy. “ἀ ey are,” Luks gloated, “my salute from the Huneker-Luks Barrel House Barricades to the Sons of the Restoration!”12 If they are, indeed, Luks’s tribute to the past and celebration of the repeal of Prohibition, Bacchus and Barleycorn may have influenced the outcome, for these images are, as a group, uniformly crude in appearance. Compositions tend to overcrowding, black shadows dominate and overpower lighter areas while faces are blurs of detail, eyes and lips frequently rendered by mere dark blots. Even the prevailing atmosphere of freewheeling debauchery tends to wear thin under the relentless repetition of eleven similar views. What they do possess, however, is a modicum of nostalgia for a long-ago era recollected under the roseate aegis of memory and alcohol and furiously recorded lest any

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker trace be inadvertently forgotten or omitted. In these works Luks employed a dynamic vigor and the robust, feverish action of his eye and brush, but the undisciplined end result failed his ambitious effort. Collectively, these works represent an unfortunate instance of the artist’s sometimes uneven production and an example of how alcohol could induce Luks to ruin otherwise interesting projects. If Old New York Drinking Places recall the memory of a bygone era, Beautiful, Bountiful Ladies of Burlesque (Vanity Fair, February 1923, 41) presents six enduring and monumental types from popular American theater, loveable for their sensuality as well as their staying power. ἀ ere is “Milly,” a corpulent matron decked out in a diaphanous, sequined gown slit at the sides, who, the caption informs, is an old favorite, performing for over thirty years. She wears an enormous ostrich-plumed hat atop her head while coquettishly concealing her face with a fan. Hand on hip, she teases, “ἀi s is me, little me, all of this!” Next to her “ἀ e Queen of the Fairies” prances about in form-fitting tights that render her almost nude, her thighs, navel, and breasts clearly visible beneath the garment, a flowing shawl, jeweled baton, and plumed hat her only accessories. A note of eroticism is evident in “ἀ e She-He,” a male-impersonator, and her opposite, “Tottie,” a performer who, although thirty-two, appears in bloomers, skirt, and pinafore as if she were a ten-year-old. ἀ e remaining dancers include “Ten-Shun!” a chorine in tights, skimpy bikini pants, and an embroidered bodice laced with military braid, “one of the glorious legacies of the old time ‘leg-show.’” And “La Cigale,” who, in a too desperate striving after refined entertainment, strums a romantic ballad to the accompaniment of a guitar, which the audience promptly uses as its cue to light up their cigars and take a break. ἀ e editors of Vanity Fair heralded the appearance of these sketches with flowery words: “An inexplicable fact,” they noted, “is the unchanging quality of that delightful institution, the Burlesque show. . . . Burlesque clings to its old traditions of bright lights, loud music, and large, healthy girls. All is as it was twenty years ago. Even the air one breathes is reminiscent.” Vanity Fair may have believed this to be true, and Luks certainly enjoyed portraying these individuals, yet in the 1920s classic burlesque already had begun to fade in popularity.13 Burlesque originally offered suggestive displays of scantily clad females combined with impertinent comedy, popular music, and the star power of leading actresses to challenge and spoof the society of the day. By the 1880s male managers began to transform burlesque according to the three-act format familiar from vaudeville and minstrel shows. By

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker 1905 burlesque acts toured in fixed forty-week vaudeville-style circuits, with comedy frequently set in street corners, courtrooms, or quack medical clinics, social settings familiar to lower- and working-class audiences at whom burlesque was aimed, sexual innuendo constituting a primary focus of these routines. In the 1920s, however, the burlesque circuit ceased, leaving individual theater owners to fend for themselves. In the flapper era of sexual liberation, short skirts, and jazz dances, with women gaining the right to vote and their career opportunities expanding, the playful sensuality of burlesque suddenly seemed old-fashioned. Many burlesque theaters turned to something they hoped could compete with film, radio, and even vaudeville, by introducing strip tease acts into their performances, a development that changed the nature of burlesque into randy and graphic performances aimed at male audiences that brought the increasing police raids and the eventual shuttering of remaining burlesque houses. Drawn in 1923 at the very time of burlesque’s unstoppable decline, Beautiful, Bountiful Ladies is tinged with nostalgia, an affectionate, loving look backward at a fast-dying art form. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia eventually closed New York’s remaining burlesque theaters by 1937. “Milly” and her thirty-year career, and “La Cigalle,” with her efforts at boring artistic performances, are symptomatic of these impending changes. In a career spanning more than forty years, Luks upheld the tradition of newspaper artist-reporters born of the urgent necessity to probe, record, and hype the truth his keen eye revealed. And like the writing of his drinking buddies, Henry James, Robert Davis, Julian Hawthorne, Henry Tyrrell, James Huneker, Brander Mathews, Rip Anthony, and Roy McCardell, who constituted the charter members of the Friendly Sons of Saint Bacchus at Maria’s Café on MacDougal Street, New York City, this meant a preference for unadorned realism. In a review on Luks in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in late December 1922, art critic Garland Smith wrote, Some idea of the vigor of his pencil work and of its humor . . . may be obtained from the drawings he has been doing for Vanity Fair for the past few years. In these inimitably funny little satires, the artist has amused himself by having a fling at his old métier; and files of newspapers that contain his Cuba sketches show much the same verve and masterfulness as his recent drawings. . . . You can almost see George Luks’ jovial face beaming and his eyes twinkling and hear him chortle in glee, when you look at these pencil impressions of certain actors in the

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker human comedy. “I’m always on the lookout for funny sights,” Mr. Luks said the other day speaking of all sorts of things. “I see them everywhere I go—little things that everybody could see with half an eye. Only most people aren’t tuned in with the humor of life. Too busy—too absorbed— too darned introspective or high brow to notice these funny little sights that the world is full of.”14 Smith’s perceptive linkage of the drawings for Vanity Fair that span the years 1914 through 1934 with the early sketches the artist made in Cuba during the opening months of 1896 underscores the essential continuity of Luks’s illustrations and graphics throughout his long career. His drawings, sketches, illustrations, and cartoons, whether appearing in books, as accompaniments to newspaper articles, as stand-alone cartoons, or as cover illustrations, centerfolds, or feature pages in journals, reveal his deeply personal engagement with the major social currents of his time. Viewed with an eye frequently critical, occasionally complacent, often humorous, and always filled with insight respecting the human condition, Luks’s drawings comprise an important corpus of material in and through which the artist consistently and boldly presented his viewpoint on a host of issues, developed his own brand of realism, and honed his artistic voice. ἀ ey provide an enduring testament to his commitment to realism, capturing, interpreting, and conveying what was vital and peculiar about life in America. In this Luks fulfilled his own teachings about art: If painters don’t study the period they live in how will they ever show people a thousand years from now that we were people who really did things too. . . . It’s up to us to show them and so we can’t be too painstaking in observation. . . . ἀ ey don’t study life, some of these young fellows nowadays. ἀ ey don’t know what people look like. ἀ ey just know their wives and the elevator boy by sight and that’s about all. ἀ ey need to get out and get kicked around a bit. ἀ ey need less “sophistication” and more observation of the world around them. (McCloy, 3) Tinged with humor, sarcasm, insightful wit, and wry observation, as well as the prejudices of his time, Luks’s drawings and sketches collectively constitute a witness to an age of rapid change and exciting developments in American society. Luks, who often railed against modernism but demanded to be considered

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Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker a modern artist because, as he stated, he painted and tried to express his own day and age, referred to his vision as capturing the soul of things. “I call it soul for lack of a better word. You know what I mean; you see these sweet little girls in the street dancing to the tunes of a hand organ, these bent, wrinkled, whitehaired old women—and there’s something in their faces that a painter has to seize to make his pictures live. ἀ at’s the soul of them.”15 And viewing these cartoons, drawings, and sketches more than a hundred years later, their “soul” still communicates, still conveys something true about life in America, and one is glad that George B. Luks did get out, get knocked around, and studied the life of his time, and that he recorded it with a vengeance.

Notes

Chapter One

A Luks Biography: The Context of His Graphic Art 1. ἀ e ideas of Robert Henri through his talks to students published as The Art Spirit are widely known. Bennard B. Perlman, in Robert Henri His Life and Art (New York: Dover, 1991), has most recently discussed the artist’s career. John Sloan is the subject of a catalogue raisonné by Rowland Elzea, while the work of William Glackens is discussed in a monograph by William H. Gerdts with a contributing essay by Jorge H. Santis. Edith Deshazo’s Everett Shinn, 1876–1953: A Figure in His Time (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1974) represents an early monograph on that artist, while Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, and Arthur B. Davies, identified more with Impressionism or early modernism than with Ashcan school realism, also have received extensive coverage. ἀ ough discussed in studies, from Bennard B. Perlman’s The Immortal Eight: American Painting from Eakins to the Armory Show, 1870–1913 (Cincinnati: North Light, 1979) to Rebecca Zurier, Robert W. Snyder, and Virginia Mecklenburg’s Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, 1995), Luks’s work is generalized, discussion often eliding over ways his drawings are unique or contribute to understanding the culture in which he lived. A good overview is found in Stanley L. Cuba, Nina Kasanof, and Judith O’Toole, George Luks: An American Artist. But their discussion of Luks’s illustrations glosses over important ways his work opens a window into American life of the period and minimizes his contributions as an artist-reporter. A more thorough analysis is found in Rebecca Zurier’s “Picturing the City: New York in the Press and the Art of the Ashcan School, 1890–1917” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1988), where she discusses diverse influences such as the expansion of New York City, Henri’s teaching, and trends within press journalism and American realist literature primarily in the context of Luks’s painting. Edgar John Bullard III, “John Sloan and the Philadelphia Realists as Illustrators, 1890–1920” (master’s thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1968), focuses upon Sloan.

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Notes 2. Statistics on mine fatalities and accidents are recorded at www.spartacus. schoolnet.co.uk/USAmolly.htm. 3. Luks is quoted in This Academy: The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1805–1976, a Special Bicentennial Exhibition Organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1976), 189. See also Mahonri Sharp Young, “Luks Under the Elms,” Apollo 98 (July 1973), 56; Joseph S. Trovato, George Luks, 1866–1933: An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings Dating from 1889 to 1931(Utica, N.Y.: Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, 1973), 14. 4. “George B. Luks Found Dead in 6th Av. At Dawn,” New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1933, 1, 11. 5. ἀ e most extant collection of Truth magazines is located at the Anderson Rare Book Library at the University of Minnesota. However, there is a gap in volumes between mid-June 1892 and mid-November 1892. If the number of cartoons Luks drew in the year 1893 is typical, Luks may have produced as many as ninety-two cartoons in 1893. 6. ἀ ese are reproduced and discussed in Bill Blackbeard, R. F. Outcault’s the Yellow Kid: A Centennial Celebration of the Kid Who Started the Comics (Northampton, Mass.: Kitchen Sink Press, 1995), 21–29. 7. While the specifics of the discussions at Henri’s Walnut Street studio have not been preserved, much of his thought and teaching were compiled by a former student, Margery Ryerson, and published as The Art Spirit (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1923). 8. Perlman, Immortal Eight, 64, states Luks landed in New York in early April. However, since Luks’s first drawing appears in the World on March 15, 1896, he must have returned no later than March 7, 1896, as a week’s passage was normally required for the trip from Havana to New York City. Given this scenario, Luks’s last three drawings for the Bulletin appeared subsequent to his firing, having been delivered to that newspaper’s offices by courier several weeks earlier. 9. An example of Luks’s painted work featuring an African American woman is a late picture from 1930, Untitled (Black Woman with Bandana), collection of Jennifer Freeman, a half-length, frontal image of a seated woman in a long-sleeved green dress wearing a white and red kerchief on her head. Chapter Two

An Illustrator Comes of Age 1. Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890–1945 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Pres, 1998), 28, illustrates Wolfe’s cartoon appearing in Life, April 14, 1892, 229. ἀ ough somewhat cursory and repeating the misconception that the Yellow Kid lent his name to the term “yellow journalism,” Richard D. Olson’s, “R. F. Outcault, the Father of American Sunday Comics, and the Truth About the Creation of the Yellow Kid,” at www.neponset.com/yellowkid/history.htm, is useful for discussing and reprinting Outcault’s first four cartoons from Truth, in which the character of Mickey Dugan makes his debut. ἀ e best treatment of this, however, remains Blackbeard, Outcault’s the Yellow Kid, 17–34. 2. ἀ e real-life Horatio Alger was born in Revere, Massachusetts, in 1832 into a strict Calvinist home. Graduating from Harvard Divinity School in 1852, he was

Notes rejected for service in the Union army as a result of severe asthma. Alger served as news correspondent for the Boston Transcript and the New York Sun and after 1864 as a Unitarian minister and social worker. In New York City, he became aware of the tenement districts, an experience resulting in the first of his self-help novels, Rugged Dick (1867). In the late nineteenth century his novels were as popular as Mark Twain’s. Alger died in 1898. 3. Renato M. E. Sabbatini, “Phrenology: ἀ e Mystery of Brain Localization,” at http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n01/frenolog/frenologia.htm. 4. ἀ e Currier and Ives print and the accompanying story are recorded and illustrated in Bryan F. LeBeau, Currier and Ives: America Imagined (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 255–256. 5. David O. Whiten, The Depression of 1893, at http://ch.net/encyclopedia/article/ whitten.panic.1893. 6. Louis Baury, “Message of the Proletaire,” Bookman 34 (December 1911): 400. 7. Edward H. Smith, “Kids ἀ at Luks Paints,” New York World, February 13, 1921, Magazine Section, 9–10. 8 ἀ e details that follow on Sullivan’s career are discussed in Jack Anderson, John L. Sullivan: The First Irish American Boxing Champion, and “The Hand That Shook the World,” at http://www.hoganstand.com/general/identity/gese/stories/sullivan/htm. 9. By 1875 the German American community comprised fully one-third of New York City’s population. By 1880 its numbers were as numerous as the entire size of the city in 1845, and “Kleindeutschland” became a type of third German capital only surpassed by Berlin and Vienna. See Stanley Nadel, Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845–1880(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 41. 10. ἀ ese two cartoons are discussed within the broader context of the formation of a Gilded Age artistic milieu in Sara Burns, Inventing the Modern Artist: Art and Culture in Gilded Age America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996), 103–104. Chapter Three

Life on the Press: Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and New York World 1. Nicholson Baker and Margaret Brentano, The World on Sunday: Graphic Art in Joseph Pulitzer’s Newspaper (1898–1911) (New York: Bulfinch Press, 2005), 8, reproduces a full-page from the World of March 27, 1898, advertising the newspaper’s new Hoe press capable of printing, pasting, and folding the four- and five-colored newspaper supplements at the rate of 20,000 co pies per hour. 2. Glackens was sent to Cuba, together with correspondent Stephen Bonsal, as an artist-reporter for McClure’s in June 1898, where he saw battlefield action and contracted malaria. His first illustrations appeared in the October and December 1898 editions of that magazine. Prior to his departure, his drawing on the Spanish-American War was published in the June issue of Munsey’s Magazine. Additional Cuban drawings appeared in the March, April, and May 1898 editions. 3. Luks claimed to have endured an attack from rebel forces while on a train trip to the countryside with other journalists to inspect war damage. ἀi s statement is attributed to Luks by the artist Guy Pene du Bois. For doubts about this claim, as well as reasons why it may be true but distorted, see the discussion in chapter 1.

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Notes 4. An example of such a Philadelphia Press drawing from the front page of the newspaper’s edition of February 3, 1896, depicting two buildings on fire along an urban streetscape, is pictured in Rebecca Zurier, Robert W. Snyder, and Virginia A. Mecklenburg, Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 60. 5. Wyler would not set foot in Cuba until February 10, 1896, but the reconcentrado policy he unleashed upon the rural populace—emptying the countryside of people, crops, and livestock, and confining people to garrisoned camps—resulted in death from hunger and disease for as many as 100,000 of the more than half a million displaced peasants, earning the captain general the nickname “Butcher” Wyler in the American press. 6. Working for Pulitzer’s newspaper, Luks was also compelled to concoct similar gruesome images, though of more exotic locales, such as Fate of the Shah’s Murderer (New York World, May 10, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 21), Strange Barbaric Customs of Persia (New York World, May 17, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 23), The Crafty Sultan— Europe’s Disgrace (New York World, September 20, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 19), and A Crime Under the Belgian King (New York World, September 27, 1896, Sunday Magazine, 28). 7. ἀi s cartoon is reproduced in color in Baker and Brentano, World on Sunday, 17. 8. ἀ e Puck cited here is the British version, not the American periodical of the same title. Puck featured Merry’s drawing on the cover of its September 21, 1889, edition. 9. Outcault’s drawing, A Page of Eyes, appears on the back page of the Magazine Section of the New York World, April 3, 1898. It is illustrated in color in Baker and Brentano, World on Sunday, 10. 10. Pulitzer did succeed in luring Outcault back with a higher salary. Outcault resumed his duties at the World on February 8, 1898. 11. ἀ e title of this comic page collaboration varied. In the January 23, 1898,World, the page was titled Giggles for Grown-Ups and Titters for Tots. ἀi s was preceded by a solo effort on the part of Luks, Jokes from the German (New York World, January 9, 1898, Comic Weekly Supplement, 3), featuring a full page of cartoons. Another solo page, this one titled A Barrel of Fresh Fall Jokes, appeared in the World, Comic Weekly Section (October 23, 1898), 3. 12. Among the first social and economic theorists to discuss the newly rich, ἀ orstein Veblin, in his ground-braking book, Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), identified the leisured as those whose vast wealth enabled them to engage in a nonproductive consumption of time. As wealth increased and leisure became a hallmark of the middle class, the lifestyle of the rich shifted from a culture emphasizing conspicuous leisure to one emphasizing conspicuous consumption, wealth being the distinctly necessary means enabling such a lifestyle. 13. ἀ ese images are reproduced in The World on Sunday, 5, 20–21, 32–33. 14. Starting out as town manager of Gravesend, Long Island, McKane accepted kickbacks and bribes from Tammany politicians while gaining control over the Coney Island police force and allowing prostitutes, protection rackets, and confidence men to operate undisturbed, until he was finally convicted in 1894 of bribery and fraud. See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/coney/peopleevents/pande03.html. 15. For a discussion of Salome dances and ensuing public debates over immorality at Coney Island, see the discussion in the text, chapter 3, on the Hogan’s Alley cartoons A Seeley Dinner in Hogan’s Alley and The Yellow Kid Takes a Sunday Off at the Seashore.

Notes 16. William Glackens painted Chez Mouquin (1905; Art Institute of Chicago), while John Sloan painted Yeats at Petipas’ (1910; Corcoran Gallery of Art). Chapter Four

The Gilded Age from the Other Side of the Tracks: Hogan’s Alley 1. I rely on David Westbrook, at www.chnm.gmu.edu/aq/comics/softlex.1.html, for the interpretation of comics as market commodities and the distinction between rowdy versus passive spectatorship in turn-of-the-century comic illustrations. 2. As a semiofficial holiday marked by the exchange of romantic tokens and gifts between lovers and spouses, Valentine’s Day has been traditionally celebrated in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, as well as Mexico and France. 3. A buck-and-wing was a type of solo tap dance featuring sharp taps. Along with the Cake Walk, it was often a feature of vaudeville and variety stage performances. 4. For etymology of the word “kid,” see www.etymonline.com/index.php?1=k&p=1. 5. Information on the life and career of Corbett is found at www.hickocksports.com/ biograph/corbettj.shtml; information of Fitzsimmons is found at www.hickocksports. com/biograph/fitzsimbob.shtml. 6. Information about conditions in the milk industry discussed in the text is contained in various articles online, including Ron Schmid, “Pasteurize or Certify: Two Solutions to the Milk Problem,” at www.realmilk.com/untoldstory1.html; and “Methods and Standards for the Production of Certified Milk,” the American Association of Certified Milk Commissioners, Inc., at www.magma.ca/~ca/rawmilk/aammc.htm. 7. I make a distinction here between cartoon images where a street or public thoroughfare is clearly indicated and represented and those cartoons where a fence or similar barrier separates the alley indicated by buildings and rooftops glimpsed from the other side of that barrier from a nondescript lot or undefined foreground space. ἀ e one possible exception to this general principle might be Outcault’s What They Did to the Dog-Catcher in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, September 20, 1896, Comic Section, 4), where kids gang up on the dogcatcher. But even here, the sidewalk remains clear for pedestrians to watch the goings-on, and the kids’ focused wrath would seem to pose little threat to anyone else happening by. 8. On March 25, 1897, the World ran a series of articles on the latest yachts purchased by wealthy New Yorkers that would soon debut in the waters of New York Harbor, Newport, and Long Island. Describing Harrison Moore’s yacht, the paper noted, “All the owner’s accommodations are aft, consisting of a saloon 15 feet by 17 feet, with two sideboards and four sofas. . . . All rooms will be provided with hot and cold running water . . . all the deck features will be of brass and polished mahogany, and the interior joiner work will be a tasteful combination of polished mahogany and white gold finish.” A week later, on March 31, 1897, the World reported on the purchase of the yacht Hildegarde by General B. M. Whitlock, an exceedingly prestigious acquisition given that the original owner was the Prince of Wales and that this latest purchase was the fifteenth vessel Whitlock owned. 9. “Bicyclists in Flesh Colored Tights,” New York World, October 18, 1896, 26; “ἀ e Great Atlanta Army Bicycle Scandal, Morality of the Wheel on Trial before a United States Court Martial,” New York World, May 2, 1897, 34; “Bicycle Boys and Jealousy Make Trouble,” New York World, October 4, 1896, 1.

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Notes 10. Peiss quotes Hutchins Hapgood concerning East Side shopgirls who congregate outside saloons or dance halls and “dance every night and are so confirmed in it that they are technically known as ‘Spielers.’” 11. ἀ e Edison Motion Picture Company actually filmed this subject on several occasions, including #69 Danse du Ventre (1894); #92 Oriental Dance (1895); #134 Princess Ali (1895); #153 Dolorita Passion Dance (1896); and #239 Turkish Harem. 12. A Brooklyn bookmaker, Steve Brodie (1863–1901) gained fame by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge on July 23, 1896, surviving the fall, although it was later claimed that a dummy was actually thrown off the bridge while Brodie hid under a pier. 13. By the 1870s men’s attire had become quite sober in color, fading from dark blues, light fawns, and plaids favored in the 1860s to staid grays and blacks. ἀ e cut and style of men’s jackets also changed, evolving from long, hanging coats extending well below the knee to midlength jackets tailored to cut away from the front. ἀ e height of top hats decreased in scale, and the derby and bowler became popular modes of headgear favored by middle- and working-class men. See Joan Nunn, Fashion and Costume, 1200–2000 (Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2000), 166–167. 14. Outcault’s three cartoons are: Hogan’s Alley Preparing for the Convention (New York World, May 17, 1896, Comic Section, 6); A Hot Political Convention in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, July 12, 1896, Comic Section, 6); A Wild Political Fight in Hogan’s Alley (New York World, August 2, 1896, Comic Section, 6). 15. “ἀ e Silver Question, Bimetalism,” at www.u-s-history.com/pages/h763.html. I have relied on this survey of the question in the text that follows. 16. For this interpretation of Rogers’s cartoon, I rely on the analysis offered at www.elections.harpweek.com/1896/cartoon-Medium.asp?UniqueID=3&Year=1896. Chapter Five

Politics and Sarcasm: Sandburrs and the Verdict 1. Copyrighted in 1898, Sandburrs proved popular enough to warrant a second printing in 1899 and a third printing in 1900. ἀ e Verdict Publishing Company published both the 1898 and 1899 editions. ἀ e Frederick A. Stokes Company published the 1900 e dition. 2. ἀ e remaining illustrations are: Mulberry Mary (opposite page 10), depicting a full-length image of Mary facing toward the left while standing before a cookstove, wearing a simple long skirt and blouse, her hair tied in a bun. ἀ e narrator relates how Mary, reared near the Bowery, marries a drifter named Bill on the condition he reform, which he does. Tragedy strikes when Bill is killed in an accident, causing Mary to turn to dope for comfort. She briefly emerges a heroine after rescuing a boy from a burning building, winning his confidence with gifts of candy. One night she leads him down to the river, where they sit watching the smoking chimneys until Mary suddenly urges they save themselves from the glowing stacks. Grabbing the boy, she plunges into the river, where both drown. Watkins Blundered Forward (opposite page 23) depicts a cowpoke named Jack Cook. With dark hair and drooping mustache, he wears an undershirt, bandana, wooly chaps, and boots. He stands in the right foreground, facing left with a revolver in hand as a slumping Bill Watkins falls to the ground opposite him. Other cowboys, hearing shots, run from the bunkhouse into the corral yard. ἀ e

Notes drawing illustrates a scene from the story “Jess,” a young ingénue whose appearance at the Cross-K Ranch has turned the formerly close comrades into a jealous bunch. Cook picks a fight with Watkins, and the two shoot it out; Watkins falls mortally wounded, and Cook saddles up and leaves the ranch. Jess then pays a visit to Watkins, causing the other testy cowboys to mount up and leave for a distant cattle roundup. I Want You to Move Some Hurried Too (opposite page 250) depicts the interior of a western stage stop cookhouse, where an angry Mollie Prescott stands before a cookstove and raises an iron skillet above her head as she prepares to strike two cowpokes who have asked her to declare for one of them. ἀ e two then decide to fight it out, one being severely wounded in the process, as Mollie leaves on the next stage. ἀ e men soon learn she’s left to marry her fiancé and bring him back to the ranch. Crib or Coffin (opposite page 294) depicts a train platform where a young man stands facing an older gentleman holding a travel bag in hand. ἀ e young Jones has married the elder Van Epps’s daughter Mary against her father’s wishes, resulting in the couple being disowned. After several unanswered letters to her father, young Jones sends the man a cryptic telegram upon the birth of their first child, stating the population of their family has been altered. Meeting now on the platform, the old man asks, “Crib or coffin?” and upon learning it’s the latter breaks down sobbing as the two reconcile. 3. After the U.S. invasion, President Cleveland appointed James Blount as special commissioner to investigate matters in Hawaii. Blount traveled to the islands, conducted interviews, and submitted a report to Cleveland outlining reasons why the United States should not annex Hawaii, chief among these being that the United States had no business overthrowing a weaker nation for purposes of annexation. Relying on Blount’s findings, Cleveland presented an eloquent message to Congress on December 18, 1893, stating his case, concluding with the words, “I shall be much gratified to cooperate in any legislative plan which may be devised for the solution of the problem before us which is consistent with American honor, integrity, and morality.” 4. Davenport described his satire of Hanna as follows: “Hanna’s eyes are inclined to be small and keen . . . and without detracting in any way from his character of face the artist can draw them much smaller. . . . His nose is short and very stout at the base, and with a rise at the point. ἀi s also can be nicely exaggerated. Nix ears, which are the most prominent part of any of his features; his ears are as big and as shapely as well developed pie plant leaves. Any old thing you care to draw, if it has room on the paper, will do for Hanna’s ears and at the same time add to your picture of Hanna. In general make-up, while a rather competent business man, [Hanna] has a coarse appearance, and to make him a little coarser helps the cartoon, which is, in brief, merely an exaggeration of certain truths.” 5. In Keppler’s cartoon, the sash on Grant’s dress, labeled “complementary ticket around the world,” indicates his shady behavior, while feathers in his hair, labeled “War Record” and “Party Fidelity,” imply that those are the only two qualities he possesses. ἀ e medallion around his neck is numbered 306, the total electoral votes he received. Cocklin’s bonnet is labeled “Greatest Effort,” a reference to the opening phrase of many of his speeches. Taken together, these details imply the two men lack the qualifications to lead the country. See Richard Samuel West, Satire on Stone: The Political Cartoons of Joseph Keppler (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 196–197. 6. Discussion that follows on New York transit is based on accounts from Walter B. Katz, “ἀ e New York Rapid Transit Decision of 1900: E conomy, Society, Politics,” Survey

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Notes number HAER NY-122, Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 5, at http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/ haer-nyrapid.html. 7. “ἀ e Army Beef Inquiry,” New York Times, April 6, 1899, 5; “Powell Process on Beef,” New York Times, April 7, 1899, 9; “Officer on Army Beef,” New York Times, April 8, 1899, 4; “Disinfectants in Beef,” New York Times, April 11, 1899, 8; Alger “ Will Not Resign,” New York Times, April 15, 1899, 1; “Made Tests with the Beef,” New York Times, April 16, 1899, 4. 8. ἀ ere is an additional unsigned cartoon that bears all the hallmarks of Luks’s style, A Game That Loses Much to Win Little (Verdict, June 19, 1899, front cover). A carnival is taking place. Behind a flag-draped barrier, Uncle Sam plays a game of chance, throwing tiny U.S. soldiers across an open field at a wall through which a hole has been cut and the face of Aguinaldo, leader of the Philippine insurrection, has been inserted. A mound of dead soldiers lying at the base of the wall testifies to the sacrifice of American lives in this effort, while their toy soldier scale references their status as pawns in this game. Two children, a dress-wearing McKinley and a chubby Hanna, stand by and watch. ἀ e cartoon is subtitled With Apologies to “Life,” possibly a reference to a leading Verdict competitor, but more probably referencing the literal meaning of the word to draw additional attention to the human cost of this conflict. 9. ἀ e caricature of Tammany Tim became a regular feature illustrated by Luks in a variety of short articles, all related in Brooklyn dialect, reflecting the Verdict’s liberal political views, including: “Governor ἀ eodore Roosevelt Discusses Platt with Tammany,” Verdict, February 13, 1899, 12; “Tammany Tim Has an Adventure,” Verdict, February 27, 1899, 7; “Tammany Tim Has a Chance-Sown Meeting with Tom Reed,” Verdict, March 6, 1899, 13; “Tammany Tim Has a Deep Sea Discourse with Whitney,” Verdict, March 13, 1899, 8; “Tammany Tim Loses a Fall to Dominie Parkhurst,” Verdict, March 20, 1899, 7; “Tammany Tim Has a Head-On Collision with Elihu Root,” Verdict, March 27, 1899, 7; “Tammany Tim Gets a Suit and Organizes for the Dinners,” Verdict, April 3, 1899, 7; “Mark Hanna and Tammany Tim Consult Concerning Jeckyl Island,” Verdict, April 10, 1899, 9; “Tammany Tim Attends a Dinner of the Democratic Club,” Verdict, April 24, 1899, 9; “Tammany Tim Is Moved to Wrath by the Mazet Investigation,” Verdict, May 1, 1899, 9; “Tammany Tim Accompanies Tom Reed to the Boat and ἀ ey Seek Croker,” Verdict, May 8, 1899, 9; “Tammany Tim Waxeth Gossipy and Discourseth and Talks of Many Different ἀin gs,” Verdict, May 15, 1899, 6; “Tammany Tim Is Discoursive and Talks Wanderingly of ‘Sheriff ’ ἀ omas Dunn,” Verdict, May 22, 1899, 8; “Tammany Tim Pays a Visit to Roosevelt and ἀ ey Confer,” Verdict, May 29, 1898, 8; “Tammany Tim Files for Publication Some Contraband Yarns of Tim Campbell,” Verdict, June 5, 1899, 7; “Tammany Tim Has a Dreadful Experience with Roosevelt, a Bottle, and a Friend,” Verdict, June 12, 1899, 7; “Tammany Tim Goes Back and Relates a Talk He Had with T. Brackett Reed,” Verdict, July 10, 1899, 7; “Tammany Tim Celebrates the Fourth and an Accident Befalls Him,” Verdict, July 17, 1899, 7; “Secretary of War Alger and Tammany Tim Consult and Console Concerning the Injustice Done Alger,” Verdict, July 24, 1899, 11; “Tammany Tim on Strikes,” Verdict, July 31, 1899, 9; “Tammany Tim Is Displeased with the Ramapo Swindle and Discusses It with Platt,” Verdict, September 11, 1899, 7; T “ ammany Tim Receives Another Gossipy Letter from Mark Hanna Which Is Full of Interest,” Verdict, September 18, 1899, 7;

Notes “Tammany Tim Takes an Interest in Roosevelt and Gets a Letter from Him,” Verdict, September 25, 1899, 7; “Tammany Tim Sends a Short Letter and Says ἀ at He’s Ill—He Met Pete Dunne,” Verdict, October 2, 1899, 7. 10. In 1896, due to the absence of boss Crocker, Tammany Hall failed to endorse Bryan. During the election of 1900, Tammany did endorse him. ἀi s shifting alliance may account for the timid, somewhat secluded presence of the tiger in Luks’s cartoon. Early in the election year, the Verdict (February 27, 1899, 8–9) obliquely raised the issue of Croker’s support for Bryan in an editorial pitched as a reply to a Virginia Democrat’s query asking if Croker would support Bryan’s free silver policy. ἀ e article featured a tiny portrait of Bryan in the upper left corner of the page and the image of a long-faced man in coat and tie brooding pensively at the upper right, both sketched by Luks. Chapter Six

Into the Roaring Twenties: Vanity Fair and New Yorker 1. A monthly journal priced at fifteen cents per copy, Broadway Magazine began publication in April 1898 and continued until November 1907. From December 1907 through September 1908, it appeared under the title New Broadway Magazine; from October 1908 until January 1909 as Hampton’s Broadway Magazine; from February 1908 until September 1911 as Hampton’s; from October 1911 until January 1912 as Hampton’sColumbian; and from February 1912 until May 1912 as Hampton’s Magazine, reaching a peak circulation of 444,000 in 1911. During this time, writers such as Jack London, O. Henry, and Damon Runyon published stories in the journal. 2. In addition to Luks’s painting of the square dating to circa 1915, Herald Square is the subject of John Sloan’s Election Night (1907; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York). Other public squares are featured in Christmas Shoppers, Madison Square (1912; Museum of Art, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) and Washington Square (1913; Museum of Modern Art, New York), the subject of drawings by William Glackens. 3. In January 1899 Everett Shinn joined the staff of Ainslee’s Magazine and exhibited pastels at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In that year he met Stanford White, who arranged for him to exhibit work at the Boussod-Valadon Galleries in New York City. Maurice Prendergast returned to New York City from Paris in 1899 and had a second successful exhibition of his work at the Chase Gallery. In the winter of 1900, John Sloan exhibited his painting Walnut Street Theatre at the Art Institute of Chicago and Independence Square at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. William Glackens exhibited in April 1901 at the Allan Gallery in New York City. 4. “Striking Exhibition of work by George Luks,” unidentified newspaper clipping, April 13, 1914, Microfilm Reel NKR-1, Kraushaar Galleries Records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 5. For a history of the PGA and the Ryder Cup discussed in the text below, see http://www.ryder-cup-ireland.org/ryder-cup-history/golf-history.htm. 6. Information that follows in the text is based on the account found in Ed Van Every, The Life and Times of Gene Tunney the Fighting Marine: How He Beat Dempsey (New York: Dover, 1926).

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Notes 7. Edward H. Smith, “Kids ἀ at Luks Paints,” unidentified clipping, George Luks Papers, Microfilm Reel NLU-1, frame 62, Archives of American Art. 8. Charles Fitzgerald, “ἀ e Society of American Artists,” New York Evening Sun, April 3, 1903, unpaginated news clipping, George Luks Papers, Microfilm Reel 95, frame 122, Archives of American Art,; “Colonial Club Art Show,” New York Mail and Express, April 3, 1903, Robert Henri Papers, 888, as quoted in Zurier, Snyder, and Mecklenburg, Metropolitan Lives, 203. 9. Elizabeth Olds, “ἀ e Old Mad Hatter Found Art in the Slums, the Story of Artist George Luks Told by One of His Pupils,” January 27, 1935, unidentified news clipping, Elizabeth Olds Papers, Microfilm Reel 2976, Archives of American Art. 10. Walter H. Vanderburgh Papers, Microfilm Reel 3480, frames 462–463, Archives of American Art: “ἀ e Luks class was disrupting the whole upstairs floors, students laughing and shouting and running the stairs. Chris was standing outside the hall not knowing what to do, to keep the students in the class they were in, or to keep those out who were trying to get in. Inside the class all was chaos and bedlam. George was banging into the canvas, there were screams, and tears, and gales of laughter. Elizabeth Olds the monitor and the only one who could control George found the situation out of hand, and was almost in tears. She gave me a pleading look, I got Chris and with some of the other ‘kids,’ as George called his chosen few, we managed to get George down the stairs and into a taxi and home. ἀ e term was drawing to a close, there was only a month or so left and Luks had been pretty good this year, only drunk about three times which was somewhat of a record. For the rest of the term there would be a recapitulation, a touching up and selecting of work for the yearly exhibition of Class work, so nobody begrudged George his binge.” 11. Eugene ἀ omason Papers, Microfilm Reel 690, frames 59–60, Archives of American Art. 12. “Old New York Drinking Places: By George Luks,” Vanity Fair, January 1934, 21. 13. For the discussion in the text on the history of burlesque, I have relied on information in John Kenrick, A History of the Musical Burlesque, at: http://www .musicals101.com/burlesque.ntm. 14. Garland Smith, “He Is a Peter Pan among Painters,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 22, 1929, Sunday Magazine, unpaginated news clipping, Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries Papers, Microfilm Reel NY59-17, frames 421–422, Archives of American Art. 15. Smith, “He Is a Peter Pan.”

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Bibliography Articles Addams, Jane. “Public Reaction and Social Morality.” Charity and the Commons 18 (August 3, 1907), 494. Appel, John J. “From Shanties to Lace Curtains: ἀ e Irish Image in Puck, 1876–1910.” Comparative Studies in Sociology and History 13 (October 1971): 365–372. ———. “Jews in American Culture, 1870–1914.” American Jewish History 71 (1981): 103–118. Armstrong, Regina. “ἀ e New Leaders in American Illustration, IV the Typists: McCarter, Yohn, Glackens, Shinn, and Luks.” Bookman 111 (May 1900): 244–251. Baury, Louis. “ἀ e Message of the Proletaire.” Bookman 34 (December 1911): 399–413. Bishop, W. H. “Story Paper Literature.” Atlantic 44 (November 1879), 387. Bluestone, Daniel. “ἀ e Pushcart Evil.” In The Landscape of Modernity: Essays on New York City, 1900–1940, ed. David Ward and Oliver Zunz, 287–312. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992. Bowker, R. R. “ἀ e Piracy of Public Franchises.” Municipal Affairs 5 (December 1901): 890–894. de Casseres, Benjamin. “ἀ e Fantastic George Luks.” New York Herald Tribune, September 10, 1933. Law, Marc T. “ἀ e Origins of State Pure Food Regulation.” Journal of Economic History 63 (December 2003): 1105–1111. MacKethan, Lucinda H. “A ‘Deluge of Simplicity’: Contradictions in the Life and Work of Joel Chandler Harris.” Southern Literary Journal 11 (1979): 87–96. McCloy, Helen. “Color and George Luks.” Parnassus 6 (March 1934): 3. Perlman, Bennard B. “Drawing on Deadline: ἀ e Little-Known Saga of the Artists Who Sketched the Scoops.” Art and Antiques (October 1988): 115–120. Ralph, Julian. “Coney Island.” Scribner’s 20 (July 1896): 18. Shinn, Everett. “George Luks, Unpublished Autobiography.” Archives of American Art Journal 6 (April 1966): 9–14. Sloan, John. “Artists of the Philadelphia Press.” Bulletin of the Philadelphia Museum of Art 41 (November 1945): 7–8. Villard, Marquita. “Dr. Will Luks on the Luks Brothers.” Parnassus 6 (March 1934): 5–6. Young, Mahonri Sharp. “Luks under the Elms.” Apollo 98 (July 1973): 57.

Manuscript Sources George Britton Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 3649. Miscellaneous papers and correspondence of James Britton, including items on George Luks. Charlotte Cushman Evans Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 2804. Miscellaneous papers and correspondence of Charlotte Cushman Evans, including items on George Luks. William and Ira Glackens Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 4709. Miscellaneous papers of William Glackens, artist member of the Eight, and of his son Ira.

Bibliography Kraushaar Galleries Records. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel NKR-1. Gallery records of Kraushaar Galleries, New York City. George Luks Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reels NLU-1 and 95. Miscellaneous papers, photographs, artwork of George B. Luks. Elizabeth Olds Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 2976. Miscellaneous papers of Elizabeth Olds, a Luks pupil. Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel NY59-17. Miscellaneous papers and records of the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City. Edward Wales Root Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 2376. Miscellaneous papers of Edward Wales Root. Martin Rosenthal Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 1356. Miscellaneous papers and correspondence of Martin Rosenthal, a Luks pupil. Everett Shinn Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 952. Miscellaneous papers of Everett Shinn, artist member of the Eight. Eugene ἀ omason Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 690. Miscellaneous papers and correspondence of Eugene ἀ omason, pupil of George Luks. Walter H. Vanderburgh Papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 3480. Miscellaneous papers and correspondence of Walter Vanderburgh, a Luks pupil.

Newspapers Consulted Brooklyn Eagle, 1929 New York Evening Sun, 1903 New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser, 1914 New York Herald, 1914 New York Herald Tribune, 1933 New York Mail and Express, 1903 New York Sun, 1933 New York Times, 1899, 1914, 1916, 1923, 1933 New York World, 1895–1899, 9105, 1914 Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 1895–1896 Philadelphia Ledger, 1923 Philadelphia Press, 1894–1895 St. Louis Republic, 1899

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Journals Consulted Broadway Magazine, 1899–1900 Harper’s Weekly, 1895–1896 New Yorker, 1925 Puck, 1891–1892 Truth, 1891–1894 Vanity Fair, 1914–1934 Verdict, 1899

Web Sources Anderson, Jack. John L. Sullivan: The First Irish American Boxing Champion, and “The Hand That Shook the World.” http://www.hoganstand.com/general/identity/gese/ stories/sullivan/htm. Biography of Grover Cleveland. http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gc2224 .html. Biography of Jim Corbett. www.hickocksports.com/biograph/cprbettj.shtml. Biography of Charles Fitzsimmons. www.hickocksports.com/biograph/fitzsimbob.shtml. Cleveland, Grover. “American Interests in the Cuban Revolution.” United States Department of State. Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, 1896, xxvii-lxii. http://www .mtholyoke.edu/acad/interel/gc26.htm. Harper’s cartoons of 1896 election. www.elections.harpweek.com/1896/cartoon-Medium .asp?UniqueID=3&Year=1896. History of Coney Island. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/coney/peopleevents/pande03 .html. History of Valentine’s Day. www.historychannel.com/exhibits/valentine/history.html. Katz, Wallace B. The New York Rapid Transit Decision of 1900: Economy, Society, Politics. Survey Number HAER NY-122, Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. http://www.nycsubway .org/articles/haer-nyrapid.html. Kenrick, John. A History of Musical Burlesque. http://www.musicals101.com/burlesquw .htm. “Methods and Standards for the Production of Certified Milk.” American Association of Certified Milk Commissioners, 1999. www.magma.ca/~ca/rawmilk/aammc.htm. ἀ omas Nast Portfolio. http://cartoons.osu.edu/nast/river_ganges.htm. “ἀ e New Fourth.” Encyclopedia of American Social History 3 (1993). http://are.as.wvu/ christz.htm. Puck cartoons. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/PUCK/part1.html. Babe Ruth biography. http://www.baberuth.com/flash/about/biograph2.html. Ryder Cup. http://www.ryder-cup-ireland.org/ryder-cup-history/golf-history.htm. Sabbatini, Renato M. E. Phrenology: The History of Brain Localization. http://www .cerebromente.org/br/n01/frenolog/frenologia.htm. Schmid, Ron. Pasteurize or Certify: Two Solutions to the Milk Problem. www.realmilk .com/untoldstory1.html. “ἀ e Silver Question, Bimetalism.” www.u-s-history.com/pages/h763.html.

Bibliography Verdun. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWverdun.htm. Westbrook, David M. The Business of the Strips. www.chnm.gmu.edu/aq/comcs/reallex1 .html. ———. The Culture of the Market Place in the Strips. www.chnm.gmu.edu/aq/comics/ softlex1.html. Whiten, David O. The Depression of 1893. http://ch.net/encyclopedia/article/whitten .panic.1893.

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Index

Abbot Hanna and the Protection Monks of St. Mack of the Monastery of the Trusts Busy Themselves with Mushroom Culture, 193–94 abolition, 56 Académie Julian, 29 Academy ἀ eater, 127 Adam and Eve, 198 Adapted to Other Professions, 61 Addams, Jane, 153 Advance of Insurgent Outpost at Guara, 96 Aesop’s Fables, 106 African Americans, 7, 8, 21, 22, 37,48, 50, 53–55, 57–58, 62, 67, 74, 82, 114–15, 117–19, 121, 123, 315, 137, 168, 182, 223 Ah, You’ve Come at Last, Young Man, 218 alcoholics/alcoholism, 23, 46, 63, 83, 97, 236, 240–41 Alfonso of Spain, 171 Alger, Russel, 103, 197, 200–1, 204 Alger Is Thrown to the Wolves of Criticism, 201–2 All Fool’s Day in Hogan’s Alley, 159, 160, 163

All Is Lost Save Honor, 102 All the Difference in the World, 56 Allen Street, 68 Alte Pinakothek, 11 Amateurs, The, 7, 40, 42–43, 134, 177, 214 America/Americans, x, 15, 16, 28, 29, 34, 37, 62, 95, 101–2, 112, 11 7–20, 122, 133, 135, 137, 145–46, 152, 156–57, 162–64, 170–71, 180–81, 18 4–85, 188, 193–94, 196, 198–99, 202, 215, 221, 223, 234–35, 240–41, 243, 245–46 American Autumn, 6 American Expeditionary Force, 226 American Historical Associations, 156 American Indians, 121, 155–56 American Nonconformist, 206 American River Ganges, The, 194 American Scene, The, 223 American Sugar Refining Company, 188 American Watercolor Society, 220 Amsterdam Avenue, 220 anarchism, 125 Anderson, Hans Christian, 106 Anglo-Americans, 135

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Index Animals Start a Circus and Make the Men Perform, The, 107 Annual Parade of the Cable-Trolley Cripple Club, 190 Anschutz, ἀ omas, 10, 29 Anthony, Rip, 244 anti-Catholicism, 194 anti-Democratic, 39 anti-imperialism, x, 20, 206 anti-McKinleyism, 24, 181 anti-Populism, 24–25, 39 anti-Republicanism, 20, 164, 204 anti-Tammany, 172, 185 anti-Trust, 20, 206 Apollo Belvedere, 159 Appleton’s Journal, 76 Armenia, 166 Armory Show, 45, 220 Armour, Philip, 193, 195, 197, 200, 204 Armstrong, Regina, 215 Army Commissary Department, 200 Art Students League, 44–45, 232–33, 235 Artful Organ Grinder and How He Adapts His Tunes to His Patrons, The, 81 artist-reporters, x, xiii, 87–88 artists, xiii, 48 Artists That Bloom in the Spring, 235–36 artist-specials, xii, 34, 87–88, 90 Asbury Park, 142 Ashcan artists. See Ashcan school Ashcan school, ix, x, 8, 38, 53, 58, 87–88, 120, 214, 220, 239 Astor family, 124, 164, 202 At a New York East Side Social Ball, 121 At Mrs. Daubleigh Crome’s, 72 At Ocean Grove, 76–77 At Rest in the Morgue, 109 At the Corner Lot Circus, 124 At the Musical, 75 At the Pier, 23, 76 At the World’s Fair, 78 Athens, Greece, 196 Atlantic Monthly, 227 Attempted Imposition Crushed, 56 Australia, 141 Austria, 101 Avenue A, 68

Avenue B, 68 Azores, 25, 26, 27, 28 “Babe” Ruth, 225–26 Baby Catchers at Work, 124 Bacchus, 242 Bad Business, 23, 68 Balmy Day in Frogland, A, 106 Balzac, Honoré de, 29, 216 Bargain Day in Hogan’s Alley, 132, 164 Bargaining for a Horse, 53 Barnes, Jesse, 226 Barnum, Phineas T., 62 Barnum and Bailey Circus, 100 Baroque, 94, 96 Barrison, Lona, 129 Barrison Frost as Viewed by a Sunday World Cartoonist, The, 129 Bartley, James, 113 baseball, 145, 147, 225–27, 231 Baseball Practice in Hogan’s Alley, 145, 147 Batter Up!, 225 Battle of Manila Bay, 101 Battle of San Juan Hill, 101 Battle with the Slum, The, 154 Bavaria, 4 Beach at Long Branch, The, 76 Beard, Frank, 68 Beautiful, Bountiful Ladies of Burlesque, 243–44 Beecher, Henry Ward, 58 Beecher, Lyman, 63 Bell Telephone Company, 40 Bellows, George, 125 Belmont, Augustus, 202 Belmont, Oliver Hazard Perry, 20, 24, 38, 40, 180–81, 202 Belshazzar, 192 Berlin, Germany, 11 Bersiglieri, The, 44 Bible, 58–59, 198 Bicycle Meet in Hogan’s Alley, The, 148 bicycles, 148 Biederman, Louis, 124 Big Snap, A, 80–81 Black Patti Troubadours, 118 blackface, 7, 55, 57, 134, 137

Index Blaine, James G., 33, 192, 202–3 Blanco Doomed!, 102 Bland-Allison Act, 165 Bleecker Street, 40 Bleeker and Carmine Streets, New York, 219 Blount Commission, 184 Blue Devils on Fifth Avenue, 44 Bohemians, 62, 72, 231–33 Bohemians and the Quest Eternal, 231–34, 236 Bohémienne, La, 13 “Bombardment of Cabanas,” 98 Book of Revelation, 198 Bookman, 154, 157, 215 Bosch, Hieronymus, 200 Boss Tweed, 16, 18, 185–86, 188 Bosses of the Senate, The, 70, 187 Boston, Mass., 44, 125, 216, 233, 240 Boston Red Sox, 225 Boulevard Raspail, 241 Bourbon Restoration, 216 Bowery, 43 Boxing, 141, 225–26 Boy and Girl Millionaires Interviewed, 122 Boy Picking Fleas from a Dog, 11 Boy with Baseball, 227, 231 Boys Eating Fruit, 11 Brady, ἀ omas, 191 Brains, The, 16–17, 186 Brancusi, Constantin, 235 Breadline, The, 214 Bright Little Fourth of July Boy Plays a Merry Jest on the Dog, The, 209 Brisbane, Arthur, 120, 129 Britain, 223, 240 British Museum, 13 Broadway, 74, 127, 138, 140, 142, 214 Broadway Magazine, 212–13 Brodie, Steve, 159 Bromley and Company, 56 Bronx, 77, 172 Bronx Zoo, 44, 220 Brooklyn, N.Y., 25, 77, 125, 152, 172, 180, 200–1, 210 Brooklyn Daily, Eagle, 244 Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, 191

Brooklyn Standard Union, 41 Brothers in Art, 84 Bryan, William Jennings, 20, 24, 39, 166, 172, 196, 198, 204–7 Buck-and-wing, 118 Buffalo Bill, 38, 156–57 Buffalo Evening Telegraph, 33 Bufford, J. H., 6 Bunny Hug, 137 Burchard, Rev. Samuel, 33 burlesque, xiii, 243–44 Bush, C. G., 104, 173 Business-Like, 70 Businessman’s Awakening, 146 Buster Brown, 105 Buzzy and Anstock, 6–7, 55, 57, 208 Café du Dome, 241 Cake Walk, 137–38 Cake Walk in Hogan’s Alley, A, 137 California, 33 Caliph, The, 127 Campos, Martinos, 88, 94 Canal Sreet, 40 Cannot a Man Become a Hero without All These Liberties Being Taken with His Name?, 103 Captain General Martinez Campos Embarking, 94 Carbonell, Mercedes, 72 Caribbean, 180 Caricature, La, 184 caricatures, 6, 7, 18, 24, 53, 67–68, 126–27, 186, 201, 218 Carmine Street, 40 cartoons, x, xi, xii, 4, 5, 8, 16, 18, 91, 20, 21, 23, 24, 33, 37–40, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57, 62–63, 65, 67–68, 70, 72, 75–76, 80, 83, 87, 98, 102–3, 105–6, 112, 11 5, 117–20, 124, 135, 137, 142, 145–49, 151–52, 159, 163–66, 169, 170, 178, 181–82, 184–86, 188–92, 198, 201–2, 204, 209 Caruso, Enrico, 43 Castle, Irene and Vernon, 137 Castle Garden Aquarium, 152 Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley and Middle Atlantic States, 21

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Index Center of New York’s Bohemia, The, 128–29 Central Labor Union, 175 Central Park, 121, 152, 222–23 Central Presbyterian Church, 152 Century, 38 Century Club, 234 Cézanne, 220 Chapman, Captain William, 139–40 Chappell, George S., 222 Charcoal Club, 29 Chardin, Jean-Baptiste Siméon, 11 Charivari, Le, 19 Chase, William Merritt, 11 Chess Players, 214 Chez Mouquin, 128 chiaroscuro, 11, 28 Chicago, Ill., 79, 85, 125, 153, 158, 195 Chicago White Sox, 226 Child Eating Apple, 8–9, 50 Children Nowadays, 80 Children of the Poor, 9 Children’s Hour in Washington Square, The, 227–28 Chinese, 7, 64, 76, 92–93, 115, 120–21 Chinese Football Players in Valiant Scrimmage, 121 Christmas, 150 chromolithographs, 6, 16, 18, 74, 80, 181, 201, 204, 210 Cincinnati, Ohio, 21 Cinderella of the Republican Party, The, 184, 188 Citizens Union Party, 172, 175 City Court of New York, 172 City Official, A, 56 Civil War, 16, 40, 60, 6 7, 112, 122 Clay, Henry (“the Great Compromiser”), 185–87 Clerical Error, A, 75 Cleveland, Grover, 32, 33, 40, 67, 98, 171, 183–84, 186, 192, 195, 201, 205 Cleveland’s Great and Good Friend, 182–83 Cline, Maggie, 129 coal/coal mining, 5 Cobb, Ty, 225–26

cockneys, 13 Coit, Dr. Henry L., 144 Collier’s, 38, 229 Collins, Eddie, 226 Columbia University, 204 Columbian Exposition, 79, 138, 158 Comic Weekly Section/Supplement, 33, 101–3, 105–7, 115, 117–25, 129, 132–38, 141, 143–49, 151–54, 158–60, 162–64, 166–68, 172–76 Comics. See cartoons Coming Nation, The, 206 Coming Republican Circus Has a Dress Rehearsal, The, 203–4 commedia dell’arte, 43 “Concert Hall in Full Blast,” 127 Coney Island, xii, 107, 125–27,151, 157–59, 236 Congress, 4, 23, 39, 100–1, 165, 182 Conkling, Roscoe, 188 Connecticut, 145 Connolly, Richard, 16 consumer culture, x, 8 Conway, John T., 13 Cooley, Charles H., 154 Coolies Seeking Places of Refuge, 92 Cooper, James Fenimore, 156 Copley, John Singleton, 97 Corbett, James L., 141–42 Coroner, The, 190 Crane, Stephen, 35 Crawford, William, 38 Crocker, Richard, 172, 174–76, 191 Cropsey, Jasper F., 6 Crowd Gets Up an Election Bonfire and the Yellow Kid Plays Nero, The, 171 Cuba, 34–36, 38, 88, 92–98, 100–3, 167, 169–71, 184, 244–45 Cuba Libre! The Daring Battle Cry, 97 Cuban Filibustering Expedition in Hogan’s Alley, A, 169–70 Cuban Insurgent Scout on the Alert, A, 91 Cuban Suspects on Their Way to Imprisonment, 97 Currie, Samuel, 200 Currier and Ives, 18, 55, 62, 78 Curtis, William, 16, 18

Index Customer Catcher, The, 70 Cutter, James Bird, 25, 26 Czecho-Slovak Army Entering Vladivostok, Siberia in 1918, 44

Düsseldorf Academy, 6, 10 Dutch Renaissance, 242 Duval, P. S., 6 Duveneck, Frank, 11

Dalrymple, Louis, 71, 76 dance halls, 7, 74–75 Danse du Ventre, 158 Danzig, Poland, 4 Darkey Professors, The, 57 Darktown Fire Brigade—To the Rescue!, 78 Daumier, Honoré, 184 Davenport, Homer, xii, 20, 21, 39, 182, 187 Davies, Arthur B., 3, 220 Davis, Richard Harding, 35 Davis, Robert, 244 de Casseres, Benjamin, 31, 46, 221, 241–42 de Kock, Charles Paul, 44, 216 Dead Open and Shut Game, A, 49 Deadly Kansas Duel, 112 Deadwood Dick, 156 Death of a Miser, 200 Death of Major Peirson, The, 97 Delanoy, Annabelle, 217 Delmonico’s, 192 democracy, 183 Democratic Alliance, 172, 174 Democrats/Democratic, xiii, 16, 19, 20, 32, 33, 39–40, 67, 164–66, 174, 176, 180, 186, 189, 192, 201, 204–6 Dempsey, Jack, 141, 226 Departure of the Wedding Party from Hogan’s Alley, The, 162–63 Depew, Chauncey, 192, 203–4 Depression of 1893, 63 Detroit Tigers, 225–26 Dewey, Admiral George, 102 Did You See These Articles in Yesterday’s Great Sunday World, 105 Do You Call This Man Homely, 113 Dozen Sunday World Artists at the Opera, A, 124 Dr. Dodd’s School, xiii, 38, 51–53 drawings, x, xi, xii, xiii, 8 Dürer, Albrecht, 198 Düsseldorf, Germany, 11, 19, 47

Eakins, ἀ omas, 10 East River, 68, 147, 230 East Side, 4, 5, 9, 28, 36, 41, 43–44, 50, 64, 80, 104, 119, 123, 125, 35, 1 137, 147–48, 151–52, 154, 157, 164, 191, 214, 220, 226–27, 231 East Twentieth Street, 230 Easter, 161–62 Easter Egg Party in Hogan’s Alley, An, 159–60, 163 Easter Parade in Central Park, An, 121 École des Beaux-Arts, 29 Eden, 198 Edgecombe Road, 220 Edison, ἀ omas, 21, 141; films of, 41, 158; laboratories of, 21 Edison in His Laboratory Working with the X Ray—From Photographs Taken by the Sunday World’s Own Photographer, 113 editors, xi Edler, Karl, 19 Eight, the, ix, 3, 29, 128, 214, 234 8 Funny Pages and a Magazine, 106 Electrical World Magazine, 21 embalmed beef scare, 103, 197, 200–1 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 29 England/English, 5, 13, 141, 208 Entirely New and Original Irish Song, An, 64 Eternal Tomb of Arctic Ice, An, 112 ethnicity, 4, 5, 8, 37, 43, 47, 53, 60, 65, 87, 118–19, 164, 182, 189, 230, 237 Europe/Europeans, 4–5, 11, 31, 25, 30, 50, 135, 138, 141, 170, 203, 220, 233, 237 Evangeline, 127 Even, 65 Every Goat Its Own Express Wagon, 124 Everybody’s Magazine, 38 Execution of a Spanish Spy, The, 92 Exhibition of Independent Artists, 220

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Index Fabrications Not Considered, 124 Fair Champion, A, 21–22 Farmer Mack and the Boys Getting Ready for the Political-Presidential Market of 1900, 204–6 Farmer McKinley Takes Off His Coat, 206 Fatal Blow, A, 78 Father Knickerbocker, 125, 182, 191, 210 Father’s Advice, A, 70 Fatima’s Cooche-Cooche Dance, 158 Feudal Pride in Hogan’s Alley, 21 Figero, Le, 12 filibuster, 171 First Avenue, 230 First Championship Game of the Hogan’s Alley Baseball Team, 145 First World War, 226, 231, 235 Fitzgerald, Charles, 234 Fitzsimmons, Robert L., 141–42 flapper era, 244 Flemming, Alice Allmont Livingston, 107–9 Foolish Summer Man, The, 112 Football Night at Jacks: Nothing But Touchdowns, 242 Forbidding the Banns, 19, 184 Ford, James L., 38, 51 Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The, 198 Four O’Clock, 220 Fourth of July at Podunkville, The, 78 Fourth Ward Brownies, 21, 22 Fowler, Lorenzo, 58 Fowler, Orson, 58 Fracas at the Ball, A, 55–56 France/French, 11, 19, 44, 101, 184, 208, 214, 226, 234, 240 Franco-Prussian War, 240 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 16, 18 Frankfurt, Germany, 202 Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, 120 Frederick J. Quinby and Sons, 44 free silver, 23, 24, 39–40, 164–66, 172, 175 Freudian theories, 234 Friendly Sons of Saint Bacchus, 244 From Saturday Till Monday in the Country, 127

Frontier ἀ esis, 156 Fun, 79 Funny pages. See comics Gage, Lyman, 196 Galicians, 68 Gall, Franz Joseph, 57 Gambrinus, 242 Garfield, James, 19 Gargantua, 184 Gas House Kids of New York, The, 227, 229–30 Gauguin, Paul, 220 Gay New York Business Men Lunching with Their Pretty Typewriters, 110–11 Gay Nineties, 46, 241 Gdansk, Poland. See Danzig, Poland Gemäldegaleria Staatlich Museen, 11 gender roles, 72–76, 110, 112 General Cepero, 93–94 General Cepero on the Way to Prison, 93–94 General Cepero the Captive Insurgent, 35, 93 General Electric, 195 Genuine Horse Show in Hogan’s Alley, A, 146 George, Henry, 172, 174–76 George Luks School of Painting, 44, 235 George Luks—In Paris, 237–38 Georgia, 117, 225 Géricault, ἀ éodore, 240 Germans/Germany, 4–5, 10–11, 18–1 9, 23, 47, 57, 64, 67–68, 101, 198, 223, 232, 240 Ghost Séance in Hogan’s Alley, A, 143 Gibson, Charles Dana, 72 Gilded Age, x, xii, 4, 130 Gillam, Bernard, 196 Gillam, Victor, 76, 196 Girl Peeling Vegetables, 11 Give Him Milk, Mrs. Burr, Milk!, 178–79 Glackens, Ira, 227 Glackens, Lenna, 227 Glackens, William, ix, 3, 29, 38, 40, 44, 87–88, 90, 96, 120–21, 128, 214–16, 220, 227–28 Glackens papers, 34, 88

Index Glow of Night, The, 214 Going By Precept, 21, 60 “Goings On About Town,” 236–37 Gold Standard Act, 196 Golf, the Great Society Sport as Played in Hogan’s Alley, 147 Gombrich, E. H., 18 Gómez, Máximo, 34, 88, 115 Good Housekeeping, 45 Good Idea, A, 67, 69 Good Reason, A, 6 Gould, Edwina and Helen, 122 Gould, Jay, 31, 188–89 Goya, 27, 30 Graetz, Friedrich, 19 Grand Cathedral of Havana, The, 35, 94–95 Grand Manner, 97 Grange, ἀ e, 198 Grant, Ulysses S., 165, 188 graphic art, ix, xi Great American Simolean Sextette— Hanna: Now All Together—Dough!, The, 5, 18, 19, 186–87 Great Bernhardt in Her Robe and Roles, The, 129 Great Britain, 101 Great Dog Show in Hogan’s Alley, The, 146 Great Dog Show in M’Googan Alley, The, 146 Great Fear of the Period, That Uncle Sam May Be Swallowed by Foreigners; The Problem Solved, The, 64 Great Heavens! It Isn’t He!, 218–19 Great Prize Fight in Hogan’s Alley, The, 141–42 Great Sunday World, The, 104 Great Trained Chicken Mose Delivers InShoots, Out-Curves and Drops Galore, The, 118 Great White Way, 153 Greater New York, 77, 125, 172, 174, 182, 204 Greatest Show on Earth, The, 203 Greeley Square, 214 Greenwich Village, 231 Gregg, Frederick James, 234

Grizzly Bill Experiences His First Duck Hunt, 209 Groh, Heinie, 226 Guam, 184 Guantanamo Bay, 101 Gustave, xiii, 216–19 Half an Hour with America’s Worst Authors, 237 Hall, A. Oakley, 16 Hall, Blakely, 20 Hals, Frans, 11, 13, 15, 30, 242 Hammerstein, Oscar, I, 127, 140 Haney Kid, The, 227 Hanna, Marcus, 18, 19, 20, 21, 39, 165–68, 180, 182, 184, 187–88, 192, 194–99, 201, 203–4, 206–20 Hanna: That Man Clay Was an Ass. It’s Better to Be President Than to Be Right!, 18, 19, 185–87, 192, 196 Harlem Fiction, A, 75 Harper’s Weekly, 16, 18, 47, 56, 76, 104, 165–66, 185–86, 188–89, 194, 205 Harris, Joel Chandler, xii, 117–18 Harrison, Benjamin, 19, 187 Harrison, William Henry, 187 Hassam, Childe, 212, 214 Havana, Cuba, 34, 88, 90, 92, 94, 97, 101 Havermeyer, Henry Osborne, 187, 195 Hawaii, 39, 183–84 Hawthorne, Julian, 244 Haymarket in Sixth Avenue, The, 242 Hayseed Legislator, The, 83 He Knew His Rights, 23 He Thought So, 82 Hearst, Wiliam Randolph, 20, 21, 33–34, 87, 115, 187 Hell Broth, 165 Henri, Robert, x, xi, 3, 29, 30, 40, 43, 127, 181, 184, 214, 220 Herald Square, 214 Hester Street, 219 High Bridge Park, 44, 220, 223 Hindus, 194 His Bill, 82 Hoboken, N.J., 125 Hoboken Pretzel Club, 145, 152

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Index Hogan’s Alley, x, xi, xii, 4, 11, 33, 63, 37, 42, 50, 60, 6 4, 80, 85, 87, 102, 104–6, 115, 119–21, 125–26, 12 9–31, 133, 135, 137, 140, 142, 145, 151–54, 157, 160, 164–66, 168, 170, 177, 180–82, 185, 215, 223, 237 Hogan’s Alley at Old Coney Island Once More, 157, 159 Hogan’s Alley Attacked by the Hoboken Pretzel Club, 151 Hogan’s Alley Bicycle Tournament, The, 148 Hogan’s Alley Boat Race, A, 147 Hogan’s Alley Folk at the Aquarium, 5, 152, 154 Hogan’s Alley Folk Sailing Boats in Central Park, 147 Hogan’s Alley Folks May-Day Visit to New Jersey, 153–54 Hogan’s Alley Kids at Hogan’s Baths, 153 Hogan’s Alley Kids at the Continuous Performance, 7, 133–34, 151 Hogan’s Alley Kids Go into the Milk Business in the Good Old Way, 143–44 Hogan’s Alley Kids Have a Barge Party Down the Bay, 147 Hogan’s Alley Kids Have a Fishing Party on an East Side Dock, 116, 153 Hogan’s Alley Kids in the Mountains, 153–54 Holding Up the Ice Cart in Hogan’s Alley, 149–51 Holmes, H. H., 100, 107–8 Homer, Winslow, 76 Hoover, Herbert, 241 Horatio Alger, 38, 51 Horta, 27 Hot Election Day in Hogan’s Alley, A, 166 Houston Street, 68 How Children at Play Daily Risk Their Lives, 125, 127 How Its Done in Wall Street, 18, 39, 186, 188–89 How Spain Can Raise War Funds, 101 How the Other Half Lives, 41, 148, 154 How the Police Facilitate Traffic at the Broadway Crossing, 190 How to Cure a Cold, 58

How Will He Feel When the Pipe Gives Out?, 102 Howarth, F. M., 68 Huckleberry Finn, 120 Hudson River School, 6, 234 Human Nature and Social Order, 154 Huneker, James, 244 Hunt, Richard Morris, 38 Huntington, Collis, 195, 197 Hurst, Tim, 142 Hutchins, F. M., 68, 78 Hypnotic Helmet for Insanity, 113–14 I Am Confident the Working Men Are with Us, 20 Ibsen, Henrik, 29 Iliad, 110 illustrations. See drawings Immanuel United Church of Christ, 4 Immigrants/immigration, 4, 5, 18, 37,40, 43, 63–64, 119, 135, 161, 222, 228, 231 imperialism, xiii, 20, 182, 196 Imperialism: A Study, 198 Imperialist Stunt, The, 199 Important Commercial Union, 23, 68 impressionism, 12–13, 30 In a Twentieth-Century Club, 72 In Ambush, 70 In 1893, 79 In Gay New York at the Casino, 121 In Hot Pursuit of a Scout, 96 Independent Labor Party, 172 Infanta Margarita, The, 27 Ingersoll, Robert, 152 Inness, George, 234 Innocent Kid and His Innocent Bulldogs, Tom and Ted, 105 Insurgent Destruction of Property, 92 Insurgent Vidette Scouting, An, 96 International Exhibition of Modern Art, 220 Iolani Palace, 184 Irish, 5, 7, 8, 21, 22, 50–51, 60–67, 114–15, 129, 135, 142, 162–63, 170, 223 Is He to Be a Despot?, 199 Issue: Shall Industry and Art Depart Before Trust Greed, The, 198

Index Italians/Italy, 7, 40–41, 43, 101, 223 Ivy League sports, 66, 145–47 J. P. Morgan and Company, 195 Jack the Ripper, 107–8 Jackson, Peter, 141 James, Henry, 223 Jeffersonian Banquet of the Trusts, The, 39 Jennings, Samuel, 54 Jersey City, N.J., 125 Jews, 7, 8, 21, 22, 50–51, 67–69, 178 Joel’s Famous Bohemia at 41st Street and Seventh Avenue, 242 John Barleycorn, 242 John L. Sullivan of His Party, The, 67 Johnson, Andrew, 4 Johnson, ἀ omas, 175 Journalism, x, 33 journals, x, xi, xii, 7 Judge, xi, 8, 19, 20, 23, 24, 39–40, 64, 67, 70, 77, 181, 196 Judgement Deferred, 64 Julius Caesar, 199 Jumal Place, 220 Justly Celebrated Trained Chicken Mose Does a Buck Dance, The, 117 Kalsomine Family, xii, 37 Kalsomine Family Glee Club in Full Action—The Trained Chicken Mose Conducts the Rehearsal, The, 117–18 Kalsomine Family on Wash Day—The Trained Chicken Mose Works the Wringer, The, 118 Kalsomine Family Practise Ball Throwing, The, 118 Kalsomine Family Start a Klondike of Their Own and the Trained Chicken Mose Pans Out a Twenty Dollar Bill, The, 118, 120 Kalsomine Family Start a Policy Shop, The, 118 Kalsomine Family’s Artificial Coney Island, The, 118 Kansas, 23, 76 Kearney Exclusion Law, 121 Kentucky, 55, 178, 237

Kentucky Catastrophe, A, 83 Keppler, Joseph, xii, 16, 18, 19, 40, 47, 67, 70, 181, 187 , 195–96, 202–3 Keppler, Joseph, Jr., 68, 181, 184, 188 Key West, 88 King of A-Shantee, The, 60 King of the May, The, 64 Kleindeutschland, 68 Kraushaar Galleries, 220, 233 Kühn, Justus Englehardt, 54 labor unions, 5 Lachaise, Gaston, 235 Ladies’ Home Journal, 45 LaGuardia, Fiorello, 244 landscape painting, 6 LaSelle, Mary Augusta, 135–36 Lauenstein, Henrich, 10 Lawson, Ernest, 3, 220 Leatherstocking tales, 156 Lee, Major General Fitzhugh, 96 Leibel, Wilhelm, 11 leisure time, 7 Lewis, Alfred Henry, 38, 164, 177–81, 200 Liberia, 168 Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences, 54 Life, 20, 50, 67, 72, 131, 181 Like Brushers of Gentlemen’s Clothes—The Critics, 235 Likely, 78 Liliokalani, 183, 199 linotype, 16 Listenin’ In, 236 literature, American realist, x lithographs, 6, 20, 47, 56 Lithuanians, 68 Little Egypt, 138–40 Little Girl in Top Hat, 227, 231 Little Lady, 227 Little Madonna, 10, 43 Little Milliner, The, 219 Little Nippers, xii, 37, 115, 119 Little Nippers’ Candidacy for the Mayoralty of New York, They Have a Quarrel Over the Campaign, The, 175 Little Nippers in Their Great Wrestling

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Index Match for the Championship of the East Side, The, 120 Little Nippers Rehearse for the Vaudeville Stage, The, 119 Little Nippers Start a Kids Colony, The, 119 Little Nippers Stuff the Ballot Boxes and Elect Themselves Mayor of Greater New York, The, 175–76 Little Nippers’ Thanksgiving Feast, The, 119 London, England, 13, 14, 77, 97, 209 London Bus Driver, 14, 15 London Cabby, 177 Long, John D., 201 Long and the Short of It, The, 57 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 227 Look Between the Fingers of That Concealed Hand, Mr. Cleveland, 98 Lord Li-Pop, 115 Lost from Self-Admiration, 83 Louis Philippe, 184 Louvre, 12 Low, Seth, 172, 174–76, 188, 201, 204, 210 Lower East Side. See East Side Lucifer, 198 Luks, Emil, 4 Luks, George Benjamin, ix, x, xi, xii, 3; alcoholism of, xii, 35, 36, 44, 46, 240; American Watercolor Society artist, 220; Armory Show participant, 220; Art Students League teacher, 44–45, 235–36; art training of, 6, 8, 10–11, 29; bohemianism of, xii; Broadway Magazine illustrator, 212–14; childhood of, 5; in Cuba, 34–35, 88–101; Dr. Dodd’s School illustrator, 38, 51–53; East Side paintings of, 41–42, 82, 219; ethnicity of, 4; European travels, 25–26, 30, 43; Gustave illustrator, 44, 216–19; Hogan’s Alley illustrator, 130– 76; Kraushaar Galleries exhibitor, 220; Luks School of Painting instructor, 44, 235–36; Macbeth Gallery solo exhibition, 220; marriages of, 72; New York World artist, 33–38, 80, 87–129; New Yorker illustrator, 45, 236–37; notebooks of, 44; papers of, 6, 233, 235; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin artist, 33,

87; Philadelphia Press artist, 30–31, 33, 86; Puck illustrator, 23–24, 47–51, 70; relationship with Everett Shinn, 7, 29, 86; Sandburrs illustrator, 38, 177–80; Truth illustrator, 25, 53–85; Vanity Fair illustrator, 45–46, 220–41; vaudevillian, 6–7, 10, 42, 48; Verdict illustrator, xiii, 24, 38–40, 180–211; watercolorist, 28, 36, 220 Luks, Will, 4, 6, 7, 42, 48, 57, 208, 217 Lyons, Mr. and Mrs. Oscar, 113 Macbeth, 127 Macbeth Gallery, 3, 43, 220 MacDougal Street, 244 Maceo, Antonio, 34, 88, 170 Machete Against Sword, 96 machine politics, xiii, 125 Macy’s Department Store, 214 Madison Square Garden, 85, 100 Madison Square Presbyterian Church, 149 Madrid, Spain, 27, 28, 29 magazines, x, 3, 5, 8, 16, 23, 55 Maine, 44, 201 Malle Babe, 11 Man of Mark!, 21 Man That Gave Barnum His Turn, The, 62 Man with Basket, 12–13, 50 Manet, Edouard, 11–12, 31 Manhattan, N.Y., 5, 41, 43, 77, 100, 172, 189, 220 Manhattan Elevated, 189–90 Manila, Philippines, 199 Marcy, William. See Boss Tweed Maria’s, 128, 244 Marti, José, 34, 88 Mary Jane, 73–74 Masquerade Ball in Hogan’s Alley, A, 149 Massachusetts, 145 mass-market culture, 4, 23 Mathews, Brander, 244 Matisse, Henri, 220, 235 Mazet Committee, 204, 209 McCardell, Roy L., 73, 244 McCarthy, Dan, 124 McClure’s, 38, 45, 90, 96

Index McDougall, Walt, 32, 33, 192 McFadden’s Flats, xi, 166 McFadden’s Flats, 133 McGuirk, Kate Swan, 100, 108 McKane, John Y., 127 McKean, Mrs. Quincy Adams Shaw, 240 McKinley, William, 19, 20, 21, 39, 101, 143, 165–69, 171, 175, 180, 184, 187, 192, 194–201, 203–6 McMicken University School of Design, 21 McSorley’s Ale House, 220 Medical Milk Commission, 145 Meditations of an Ancestor, 178 Metropolitan Line, 189–91 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 122 Metropolitan Opera, 122–23 Metropolitan Street Railway, 188, 190 Meusel, Emil Frederick, 226 Mickey Dugan, x, 33, 50, 116, 119, 129–33, 138, 141, 143–46, 148–49, 152–53, 156– 62, 164, 167–68, 172–74 Miles, Nelson, 200 Miller, Alfred Jacob, 6 Miner, The, 5 miners/mining, 5 Minneapolis, Minn., 125 minstrels, 7, 53, 118, 243 Miscegenation Ball, 56 Miss from Miss, The, 75 Missionary Report, A, 115 Missouri Compromise, 187 Mitchell, Charles, 66 Mitchell Foundation, 6 Modern Jonah Proves His Story, A, 112 modernism, 231, 233, 23 6 Moll Flanders, 216 Molly McGuires, 5, 181 Monday-Saturday, 71 Monet, Claude, 11 Moody, Dwight L., 146 Mora, F. Luis, 72 Morgan, John Pierpont, 188, 195, 197, 203 Morning Review of Volunteers, 89–90 Moro Castle, 97 Morris, Franklin, 70

Mose and the Pickaninnies Have a Crap Game and Uncle Remus Enjoys It, 115 Mose Previews the Easter Parade of the Incubator Brood, 121 Mose the Great Trained Chicken in His New Act as Melon Inspector, 115 Mose the Great Trained Chicken Runs an Incubator Show, 120 Mose the Trained Chicken, xii, 37, 106, 115 Mose’s Incubator, 37–38, 115, 120 Mose’s Incubator, An Easter Parade in Central Park, 37 Mott Street, 40 Mr. Bryan Isn’t That a Healthy Tree to Get Your Plank From?, 24 Mr. Everdhry McNulty Endeavors to Swear Off with the Aid of a Dime Savings Bank, 65–66 Mr. Santa Claus of Coonville, 119 Mr. Sullivan’s Scrap-Book, 66–67 Mrs. Platt and Her Theories, 121 Mount, William Sydney, 53, 55 Mouquin’s, 128 Mt. Lebanon Shakers at Worship, 121 Mugwump, The, 83 Mulberry Bend, 154 Mulberry Street, 40 Munich, Germany, 19, 202 Munich Style, 11 Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, 5 Murillo, Bartolome Esteban, 11 Muscular Christianity, 67, 146 Musée National du Luxembourg, 214 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 227 “My Mother Was a Lady,” 242 Name Changed, 78 Napoleon Bonaparte, 199 Nast, ἀ omas, xii, 16, 18, 19, 20, 39–40, 60, 185–86, 188–89, 194, 196 Nast Weekly, 189 National Academy of Design, 3, 43–44, 220, 234 National Gallery of Art, 5 National Socrates and the Republican Hemlock, The, 196–98 National Women’s Party, 39

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Index Negro Boy with a Wonderful Memory, 115 Neige, La, 214 Nelan, Charles, 102 Nero, 188, 237 New Basis of Civilization, The, 154 New Jersey, 7, 145, 154 New Orleans, La., 125, 141 New Shoes, The, 230 New Year’s Day 1898, 125 New York Central Railroad, 40, 188, 192, 203 New York City, ix, x, 3, 16, 20, 21, 25, 27, 31, 33, 34, 36, 40, 44, 46, 50, 69, 79, 82, 96–98, 102, 110, 121–22, 124–26, 138, 141–44, 149–50, 152–54, 171, 182, 188–92, 195, 201–2, 204, 210, 214, 217, 220–22, 231–33, 421, 244; growth of, xii, 37, 77; police, 139, 143, 209 New York City’s Delegation to the Fiftysixth Congress, 182 New York Crowds Hiss the Queen of Spain, 100 New York Gas and Electric Light, Heat, and Power Company, 191 New York Giants, 226 New York Herald, 102, 200, 210, 214 New York Horse Show, 122 New York Horse Show Fancies, 122–23 New York International Exhibition of Modern Art. See Armory Show New York Journal, 20, 21, 23, 33, 36, 87, 98, 130, 166, 170–71, 175 New York Post, 210 New York Public Library, xiii, 237 New York Rapid Transit Commission, 191 New York Series, 225 New York State, 145, 168, 192, 203 New York Times, 25, 191, 200, 221 New York Tribune, 210, 234–35 New York World, xi, xii, xiii, 5, 7, 11, 15, 21, 22, 23, 31–34, 36–37, 40, 85–87, 98–115, 117–26, 128–49, 151–54, 157–60, 162–64, 166–70, 172–76, 181, 187 , 189, 191–92, 207–8, 210, 221 New Yorker, xii, xiii, 45, 211–12, 220–21, 226, 236–37, 241

New York’s Most Popular Citizen, the Sunday World’s Kid—How Would He Do for Mayor?, 172–73 “New York’s Vast Training School of Vice and Vulgarity, Coney Island, Is Now a Modern Sodom,” 125 New Zealand, 141 Newark, N.J., 125, 144, 207 Newport, R.I., 39, 122–23, 151 Next Great Sunday World, The, 106 Night Scene in Herald Square, Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street, 212–14 nightclubs, 74 Nights With Uncle Remus, 117 Nihilists, The, 127 No Photographer, 75 No Time to Be Lost, 63 Noble, Emma Louise, 72, 217, 220 Noble, John, 217 Not Quite Barbarians, 79 Nova Scotia, 44, 233 O Keg America, 46, 221, 241–43 Ohio, 21, 39, 186 Old and the New, The, 83 Old Duchess, The, 80, 219 Old Mary, 239 Old Masters, 11, 25, 49 Old New York Drinking Places by George Luks, 241, 243 Old Pal, 239 Old Rosary Woman of Catherine Street, New York City, The, 80 O’Leary, Maurice McCarthy, 34, 88, 90–91, 97 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 222 Olympia, 11 Olympia Music Hall, 140 Olympic Athletic Club, 141 On the Bluff at Long Branch at the Bathing Hour, 76 On the Quarter Deck of Democracy, 182 One A.M., 82 One of Many, 178 One Sees His Finish Unless Good Government Retakes the Ship, 39, 193 Only a Bait, 166

Index Opper, Frederick Burr, 24, 39, 47, 60, 63, 76, 78 Otis, Elwell Stephen, 199 Our Diana Remodeled to Fit Chicago, 84–85 Our Farmer’s Situation, 206 Our Hotel Detective, 82 Our Medical Restaurant, 58 Our Songs and Those Who Sing Them, 57, 118 Our Table d’hote in Bohemia, 23 Outcault, Richard Felton, x, xi, xiii, 4, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33, 63, 37, 50, 60, 79, 104, 115, 119, 125, 129–33, 138, 141, 145–48, 151, 154, 157, 159, 164, 166, 170–71, 175, 177 Overheard in the Park, 124 Pacific Ocean, 180, 199 Paddy the Pig’s at 50th and Sixth Avenue, 242 painting, xii Parents Exhibit Their Dead Babies, 113 Paris, France, 11–12, 3, 1 21, 30, 44, 48, 209, 216–18, 232, 234, 237–38, 241 Parkhurst, Dr. Charles Henry, 140, 148–49, 209–10 Parkhurst and the Goo-Goos Make War Medicine against the Democracy, 209 Paten, Simon, 154 Pawnbroker, The, 236 Payne, Sereno, 201 Peace Protocols, 101–2 “Peaceful Workmen Shot Down Near Matanzas,” 98 Peffer, William Alfred, 23, 76, 78 Peffer’s Populistic Boom, 78 Pennsylvania, 4, 7, 44, 145–46, 233 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 7, 8, 10, 11, 29, 214, 233 Pennsylvania Dutch, 68 Pennsylvania Dutch Woman, 20 pentimenti, 220 Perry, Robert, 113 Perry Athletic Club, 226 Petapas, 128 Petersen’s Magazine, 26, 27

Philadelphia, Pa., ix, 6, 30, 88, 107, 120, 125–26, 142, 184, 195, 217, 232 Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, x, xii, 11, 31, 33–36, 86–87, 89–94, 96–97, 101, 170 Philadelphia Inquirer, 29, 87 Philadelphia Ledger, 233 Philadelphia Press, 11, 28, 29, 30–31, 33, 39–41, 48, 83, 86–87, 89 Philadelphia School of Design for Women, 29 Philippines, 39, 100, 199–200 Philosopher, A, 220 Phrenologist Examines the Head of Claude Melnotte Buffum of Darktown, The, 57 phrenology, 57–58 Picasso, Pablo, 220 “Piling Up of the Dead at Guatao,” 98 Pipe That Was Reached For, The, 115 Plantation Hands on Their Way to Havana for Safety, 92–94 Platt, ἀ omas C., 166, 168, 172–76, 203–4 Platt’s Hunting of the Tiger, 209 Poet’s Mead, The, 48 Poland/Poles, 4, 68 Policeman of Today, The, 82 polo, 45 Polo Game, The, 220 Ponta Delgada, 28 Populists/Populism, 23, 40, 77, 206 Porkville’s Four Hundred in the Merry Waltz, 106 portraiture, 6 Posing for Pay, 235 positive environmentalism, 153 Possumville, 50 Practical Reciprocity, 23, 48–49 Prado Museum, 25, 27, 28 Prang, Louis, 18 Praying Hands, 198 Prendergast, Maurice, 3, 214, 220 President-Elect McKinley Visits Hogan’s Alley, 167–68 prize fighting, 60–62, 141, 225 Prize-Fighting Craze, The, 60–62 Professional Golfers’ Association of America, 223 Progress of a Prize Fight, The, 225

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Progressive Era, 154 Prohibition, xiii, 46, 149, 241–42 Prominent Lobsters, 201 prostitution, 75 Protection Nursery, the Trusts Reared and Cared For, 5, 194–95 Protestant work ethic, 64, 67, 70, 119 Protestants, 64, 66–67, 198 Prussia, 4 Puck, xi, xii, 7, 8, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23–24, 38–40, 47, 50–51, 60, 63–64, 67–68, 70–71, 77–79, 82–83, 85, 114, 131, 156, 180–81, 184, 187–89, 195, 202–3, 206, 221, 230, 237 Puck’s Valentine for 1894, 79 Puerto Rico, 184 Pulitzer, Joseph, 21, 23, 31–3 2, 33–34, 36, 85, 87, 98, 115, 130–31, 164, 181 Punch, 60, 184 Punch and Judy, 203 Punchinello, 204 Purdy and Christmas Rescuing “Big” Burns, 52 pushcarts, 161–62 Queen of Spain, 100 Queen Victoria, 100 Queens, 77, 172 Quigg, Lemuel, 173–74 Quilting Frolic, 55 Quinby, Frederick J., 216–17 race. See ethnicity Racism, xii Radio Talk and Talkers, 236 Raines law, 172 Rapid Transit Act, 190 Raven, The, 19 RCA Victrola, 105 Reception to Campos in the Palace Huruna, 94 reconcentrado policy, 100, 171 Reconstruction, 56 Reed, ἀ omas, 196, 204 Regulation Picnic on the Glorious Fourth, The, 127 Rembrandt van Rijn, 11, 13, 15

Remington, Frederick, 99 Renoir, Pierre-Auguste, 13 Republican/Republicans, 19, 32, 33, 39– 40, 164–66, 168, 172–74, 176, 180, 182, 187–89, 191–92, 196, 201–5, 209 Residents of Hogan’s Alley Visit Coney Island, The, 157 Riis, Jacob, 9, 41, 80, 148–49, 153–54, 215 Rise of the Amateur Athletic Wonder, The, 83 Roaring Twenties, x, 4, 212 Rockefeller, John D., 188, 195, 197, 202 Roentgen, Wilhelm Konrad, 113 Rogers, William Allen, 165–66, 206 Roman Catholic Church, 33, 163, 194 Rome, Italy, 237 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 46, 241 Roosevelt, ἀ eodore, 113, 143, 168, 191, 203–4 Root, Edward Wales, papers, 13 Root, Elihu, 203–4 Rosenthal, I. N., 6 Ross, Edward A., 154 Round Table, 76 Royal Feast of Belshazzar Blaine and the Money Kings, The, 32, 192 Ruin of the Bridge at Bejucal, 92 Ruins of a Plantation, 92 Rumanians, 68 Russia/Russians, 62, 68, 101 Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride, 55 Ryan, ἀ omas, 191 Ryder Cup, 223 Sacking of the Town of Jaruco, Cuba, 35, 97–98 Sacrifice to the Political Wolf, A, 202 Sagasta, General Praxedes Mateo, 101–2 Sagasta’s Last Dream, 102 Sage, Russell, 188–89 Saint Patrick’s Day in Hogan’s Alley, 142 Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 85 Salome, 127 saloons, 7, 46, 48, 140, 221, 225 Salvation Army, 13 Sammis and Latham, 55 San Francisco, Calif., 20, 141

Index San Miguel, 27 Sandburrs, xiii, 38, 177–80, 207 Sandwich Islands, 58 Santa Claus, 132, 149–50 Santa Claus Held Up in Hogan’s Alley, 149–50 Santiago, Cuba, 101 Sargent, Margarett, 240 satire, x, xi, 5, 16–19, 20, 23, 24, 33, 39–40, 60, 67–68, 83, 122, 147, 184–85, 187, 201, 221–41 Saturday Evening Post, 45 Scene at the White House When ExQueen Liliokalani Appears with Her Bills, 182 Scene from the Hunter-Naturalist, 6 Scenes of Revelry in Old New York, 221 Schreyer, Adolf, 202 Schudson, Michael, 137 Schuylkill County, 5 Second Avenue, 230 Second Burglar: There’s the Old Fool Asleep! The Swag Is Under His Head. Grab It!, 191 Second Issue, the Advance of Imperialism, The, 196, 198, 200 Seeley, Herbert, 139–40 Seeley Dinner in Hogan’s Alley, A, 138–39 Seen on Any Free Day in Any Art Gallery, 233 Self-Portrait, 28 Self-Portrait as a Young Man, 11 Serious Accident, A, 53–55 Seventh Illinois Regiment, 200 Shakespeare, William, 127 Shame of America—John Chinaman as the Husband to Our Girls, The, 64 Shaw, George Bernard, 237 Shelley, Mary, 120 Shenandoah, Pa., 5 Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 195 Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 165 Sherry’s restaurant, 138 Shinn, Everett, ix, 3, 7, 29, 35, 38, 40–41, 83, 86–87, 96, 98, 151, 181, 214–16, 220; papers, 7 Shuffling Coon, The, 118

Sight Seeing in a Sanatorium-de Luks, 237–38, 240 Significant Removal, A, 79 Silly Summer Girl, The, 112 Sinclair, ἀ omas, 6 Sitting Bull, 155 Sixth Avenue, 46, 214 Sixth Avenue El, 242 Slight Misunderstanding, A, 50–51, 53, 82 Sloan, John, ix, x, 3, 29, 30, 39–40, 83, 87, 128, 151, 181, 214, 216, 218, 220 Small Parks Advisory Committee, 153 Smith, Garland, 244 Smith, Jerome H., 70 Snowball Battle in Hogan’s Alley, A, 169–70 Social Control, 154 socialism, 125 Society for the Prevention of Crime, 149, 209 Socrates, 196 Soliloquy, 63 Some Human Exhibits at Newport, 124 Some Can’t and Some Canter, The Highly Colored Ingredients of a Nut Sunday, Bridled Horses and Unbridled Sketches, 221 Sons of Italy, 43 Spain/Spanish, 11, 25, 27 , 29, 34–35, 88, 90, 92–95, 98–102, 108, 170–71, 196 “Spanish Soldiers Murdering Women at Guatao,” 98 Spanish Troops at the Solstice, 90–91 Spanish War Bubbles, 101 Spanish-American War, xii, 87, 103, 184, 198 Speakeasy Scenes by George Luks, 240 Specials. See artist-specials Spending an Hour Over It, 79 Spendthrift, The, 73–74 Spielers, The, 5, 43, 64–65, 82, 121, 151, 215, 219 sports, 208 Spring Nonsense, 24 St. Louis, Mo., 125 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 31

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Staatliche Kunstakademie Hockscule fur Bildende Kunste, 10 Standard Oil Company, 40, 188, 195 Starucca Valley, 6 Staten Island, 77, 172 Steaming Streets, 125 steel engravings, 18 stereotypes, xii, 8, 22, 23, 37, 41, 48, 50–51, 53, 55, 57–58, 60, 62, 65, 68, 70, 78, 115, 117, 119, 135, 182, 207 Stieglitz, Alfred, 214 Street Making in the Little Nippers’ Colony, 119 Street Parade to Advertise Mose’s Incubator Show, A, 120 Street Scene, 40–42, 214–15 Street Scene in Tampa Bay, A, 90 Stroke, The, 220 Strong, William Lafayette, 153 Study of the Facial Expression at the “Phone,” A, 70–71 Stuttgart, Germany, 202 subways, 189–91 Sugar Refineries Company, 195 Sullivan, John L., 66, 141 Sunday Girls Drying Their Hair, 220 Sunday Magazine, 113, 115, 121, 123, 126, 128 Sunday World Cartoonist’s Impressions of Maggie Cline and Hogan’s Alley, A, 129 Sunday World 8 Funny Pages and a Magazine, 104–5 Sunday World’s Bicycle Page, 106 Sunshine of Paradise Alley, The, 127 Sweeny, Peter, 16 Switchback Gravity Railway, 157 Symposium of Cartoonists and a Congress of Comics, A, 104 T. Jefferson Bender Had Played Skylight, 177 tainted milk scare, 36 Talmage, T. DeWitt, 152 Tammany Hall, 16, 18, 149, 172, 174, 176, 182, 185, 188–91, 914, 202–3, 205, 209, 223 Tammany Tiger Let Loose, The, 16–17

Tammany Tim, 200–1 Tammany Turndown, A, 62 tariff, 180 Taylor, C. J., 76 Taylor, Horace, 177 Tenderloin as the Hayseed Dreamed It Was; The Way the Hayseed Found It, The, 24, 210 tenements, 4, 5, 8, 21, 37, 65, 80, 223 Tenniel, John, 60 Tennyson, Alfred, Poems, 110 Ter Borch, Gerhard, 11 ἀ anksgiving, 119, 145 Thanksgiving Day in Hogan’s Alley, 163–64, 166 They Are a People, 67, 70 ἀ ompson, La Marcus, 157 ἀ oreau, Henry David, 29 Thoughtful Advice, 115 “ἀr ow McClosky Down,” 129 Tirado, 92 Tironas, 92 To the Trusts: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, for in 1900 You Die!, 33, 192–93 Tom Jones, 216 Topic of Today, The, 58–59 Torture by the Garrote in Morro Castle, 99 Tosca, 129 Tracy, Benjamin F., 172, 174–75 Tragic Easter Rites of the Penitents, 112 Training for the Football Championship Game in Hogan’s Alley, 145 Transformation of a Paying Teller, The, 70 Travelers, 13–14, 50 Treaty of Paris, 84, 199 Trials of a Vase Hunter, The, 72 Trocha, 88, 170 Troika in Winter, 202 Troops Guarding the Great Bridge, 35, 92 Trusts, the, xiii, 5, 18, 19, 32, 39, 70, 180, 182, 187–88, 193, 195–96, 198–99, 203, 206 Truth, xii, 7, 8, 20–25, 28, 38, 50, 53, 55–72, 74–85, 112, 11 4, 118, 131, 156, 178, 207, 221, 230, 237 Truth Suggests a Few Attractions of the World’s Fair, 79

Index Truth Suggests Some New Ideas for Advertising, 23 Tunney, Gene, 226 Turkey, 166 Turkey Trot, 137 Twain, Mark, 120 Two Spaniards, 28 Types of the Ball Season, 74, 82 Tyrrell, Henry, 244 Uncle Remus, xii, 116–19 Uncle Remus and His Friends, 115 Uncle Remus Legends of the Old Plantation, 117 Uncle Sam, 64, 165, 182, 193, 196, 199 Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving, 165 Undoubtedly the Best Number of the Great Sunday World, 106 unions. See labor unions United States. See America Unknown Husbands of Well-Known Wives, 110 Up To Date American Child, The, 80 U.S. Marines, 226 U.S. Navy, 171 U.S. Soldier and Sailor: Are We In It? Well, Say!, 103 U.S. Steel, 188, 195 U.S. Supreme Court, 195 USS Maine, 101 Valentines, 6, 135–36 Valentine’s Day in Hogan’s Alley, 5, 135–37, 147 Van Gogh, Vincent, 220 Van Wyck, Robert, 172, 174–76, 200 Vanderbilt, Alma, 39 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 188, 192, 203 Vanderbilt, Gertrude, 122 Vanderbilt family, 202 Vanity Fair, xi, xii, xiii, 8, 45–46, 211–12, 220–29, 231–32, 235–38, 240–45 vaudeville, 6–7, 8, 10, 42–43, 48, 55, 57, 68, 83, 119, 123, 127 , 133–34, 137, 198, 243–44 Vaudeville Singers, The, 7, 42. See also Amateurs, The Vaux, Calvert, 222

Vega, The, 25, 27, 28 Velázquez, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y, 25, 29 Verdict: Mr. Bryan, Isn’t That a Healthy Tree to Get Your Main Plank From?, 204–5, 207 Verdict, The, x, xi, xii, xiii, 5, 16, 18, 91, 20, 21, 24, 33, 38–40, 85, 164, 171, 176–78, 180–86, 189–91, 193–94, 196–205, 208–10, 212, 221, 223 Verdun, France, 240 Verhoef, John, 112 Vermont Boy’s Strange Malady, 113 Victim of the Blizzard, A, 209 Victorianism, 4, 13, 74, 79, 146, 168, 180, 207 Vie Parisienne, La, 12 Village Barricade, A, 170 Volsted Act, 241 Von Kramer, Bertha Emilia, 4, 5 Voyage of the Vega and Other Tales, or the Birth of Self-Reliance, 25, 26 Wagner and McGuigan, 6 Wall Street, 21 Wall Street Wishes a New Guardian of the Treasury, 21 Walsh, Billy, 26, 30 War Scene in Hogan’s Alley, The, 170 Washington, D.C., 23 Washington, George, 21 Washington Square Park, 121, 227–28, 230 Water Spout, A, 83 watercolors, 233 Way We Get Our War News, The, 199 Wedding Party in Hogan’s Alley, A, 162 Wedding Trousseau of a Young Man of To-Day, 124 Welsh, 5 West Indies, 117 What He Craved, 62 What the Master Modernists Are Doing, 235 What They Did to the Dog Catcher in Hogan’s Alley, 151 What Would They Do to Each Other if They Could, 121

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Index

[ 284 ] When Corbett and Fitzsimmons Will Meet, 142 When the Golfer Isn’t Golfing, Quaint Creatures In and About the Club House, 223–25 Where Is He?, 19, 187 Whiffenpoofs, 6 White, Stanford, 79 White House, 168, 183–84, 206 Whitman, Walt, 29 Whitney, Harry Payne, 122 Whitney, William C., 188–89, 191 Widener, Peter, 195, 197 Widow McGee, 5, 43 Wilber Perkins on the Bowery, 24 Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, 108–10 Wild Oats, 22, 50 Wild West Show, 156 Wild West Show in Hogan’s Alley, A, 155 Will the Military Spirit Have This Effect on Our Future?, 102 Will You Resign?, 200 Williamsport, Pa., 4, 5 Winter Union Square, 212 Woman Jury Speaks for Itself, 107 Wonderful Trained Whale at Coney Island, The, 103 Wood, Dr. John, 113 Wood, ἀ omas Waterman, 5 woodcuts, 18 Woolf, Michael Angelo, 22, 50, 79 Worcester, Mass., 223 World. See New York World World Series, 225 World War I, 44 World’s Columbian Exposition, 85, 153 World’s Fair, 79 World’s Fair Puck, 79 Would Not Be Bluffed, 75 Wrestlers, The, 43, 219, 226–27 Wrestlers. A Page of Grips, Holds, and Falls, The, 225–26 Wyler, General Valeriano, 94, 100–1, 171 yachting, 147–48 Yale, 146 Yeats at Petipa’s, 128

Yellow Kid, x, 21, 22, 23, 33, 63, 119, 131–35, 138, 141–42, 146–47, 149–50, 154, 158, 166–67, 169–71, 174–76, 181 Yellow Kid Inspects the Streets of New York, The, 171 Yellow Kid Takes a Sunday Off at the Seashore—Captured by the Artist in the Act of Entering the Midway, The, 157–58, 164, 168 Yellow Kid’s Candidacy for the Mayoralty of Greater New York—He Attends a Conference of Leaders at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, The, 174 Yellow press, x, 137 Yiddish theater, 68 Young Physician’s First Case, The, 83 Young Men’s Christian Association, 67, 146 Zimmerman, Eugene, 68 Zola, Émile, 29