Joseph Keppler, in PUCK Magazine, around 1890, made a prediction

125 Years Ago, PUCK Magazine Speculated on Canada Becoming Part of the United States...

by Rick Marschall

Canada, and the Colonies-then-USA, have been linked through the centuries as member lands of France, Spain, and Great Britain. Sometimes linked in territorial claims, sometimes squabbling over same; separated (except for Francophone lands) by the same language. Eh?

Recently as of this posting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on President-Elect Donald Trump to say hello and, by the way way, plead with the once and future president not to enact tariffs. Trump had voiced concern over trade imbalances, unfair subsidies, and especially lax border policies. Many United Statesians remember that the majority of 9-11 terrorists entered the country through Canada.

Withal, since the 1700s there has been remarkably little friction between the two countries. A few border disputes were settled by arbitration; great trade and great harmony exists and persists. As a casual analyst, I hope Canadians are happy with TV programs from the US; and down here, we have been laughing at Canadian comedians for a generation.

Also, the founder of this Web Magazine, the late and beloved John Adcock, was a native of Alberta -- another point of coincidence. Occasionally he would talk of Western provinces losing patience with the rest of Canada, and hearing whispers of Secession.

So it might not be untoward to recall in this post a classic cartoon from one of the times in history that Secession -- even a full-country merger with the United States -- was in the news.

Several times in Puck Magazine its founder and chief political cartoonist Joseph Keppler speculated (approvingly) on Canada becoming part of the United States. Other Puck cartoonists -- indeed, other cartoonists like Thomas Nast; and many politicians of the "Manifest Destiny" stripe -- cast hungry friendly eyes on the prospect. Canadians seldom shared the "dream"; the British Crown even less frequently.

In the early 1890s, Keppler drew an elaborate cartoon on the topic. At the center of the cartoon (as often a theme was carried) the magazine's mascot Puck proposes a toast. How a punchbowl wound up in the snowy wilderness is not explained, but Uncle Sam and his distaff, iconic companion Miss Columbia happily embrace as children -- each labeled to represent state of the US -- dance around the fire.

In the icy shadows, the figure representing Canada looks on with a combination of disdain and jealousy. Huddled around her are children bearing labels of the Canadian provinces. Out in the cold, they are ill-clad, ill-housed, ill-fed. Not a subtle point, Kep; but probably more charitable than Donald Trump's answer to Justin Trudeau's prediction that Canada's economy would be ruined by US tariffs: "Just become America's 51st state and become a Governor instead of Prime Minister."

     

WHEN ELECTION DAY IS CONFRONTED BY DEADLINE DAY

 

How Cartoonists Addressed Presidential Campaigns' Results...

BEFORE the Votes Were Taken

by Rick Marschall

Appropriate to the theme of this post, I wrote this before the results of the Trump-Harris were known (medical distractions...) and before the votes were cast. The "mysterious" aspect resonates, however. 

Back in B.I. (Before the Internet), voting in America was different than now. There were election days, although some rural areas extended the times to cast ballots. Paper ballots everywhere, excpet for arcane wrinkles -- dropping balls in separate boxes (hmmm... poll watchers could tell who you were and which party you favored); glass "fishbowls (so observers could see your ballot), and so forth. Eventually, the United States adopted the "Australian Ballot" -- private preferences.

Results were, of course, eagerly awaited. Telegraph messages were prized. And for years the New York World cast giant magic-lantern messages with the latest headlines and vote tallies onto the face of their imposing building on Park Row, New York City.

But the staffs of weekly magazines -- especially their cartoonists -- had a tougher challenge. The journals might appear on newsstands the day of the election, or close to it... but conceiving, drawing, engraving, printing, and distributing the magazines obliged the cartoonists to either skip the topics (no way!) or fudge the issue. Somehow. 

Joseph Keppler, the founder, chief cartoonist, and editor of Puck Magazine embraced the challenge. He loved creating cartoon puzzles -- if they could be called that: incorporating faces into the backgrounds, props, peripheral elements of his cartoons. One Christmas, Puck even offered a readers' contest for those who could discover and identify the faces of celebrities Keppler "hid" in his cartoons. In 1880, the political wisdom reckoned that the presidential candidates were neck-and-neck. Republican James Garfield was challenged by Gen. Winfield Hancock. 

How to address the campaign, which would be stale news -- anyway, not "new" when the issue would be on sale? Keppler draw two figured representing the two parties, shaking hands in unity. And he incorporated a great number of contemporary politicians' faces on the trees, rocks, and bushes. Here is the cartoon, from the issue dated Nov 3, 1880 -- but drawn and printed several days earlier:

You will find Sen. Roscoe Conkling (after whom the comedian Fatty Arbuckle was named); Sen. James Gillespie Blaine; Interior Secretary Carl Schurz; Marshall Jewell, former postmaster-general; GOP vice-presidential nominee Chester Alan Arthur; former President Ulysses S. Grant, who had contended for the nomination in 1880; Pres. Rutherford Birchard Hayes; Samuel Jones Tilden, 1876 Democratic presidential nominee; Democrat VP nominee William English; Senator John Logan; Tammany Hall boss John Kelly; presidential aspirant Benjamin Butler; Sen. Thomas Bayard; and future New York City Mayor (he would defeat young Theodore Roosevelt in 1886) Abram S Hewitt.

Bernhard Gillam addressed the same challenge in 1892; but he answered in a different manner. Grover Cleveland had been elected president in 1884, the first Democrat since before the Civil War. In 1888 he lost to Benjamin Harrison -- despite winning the popular vote, he lost in the Electoral College... corruption and chicanery winning the day for Harrison in his own state of Indiana. Not unique.

In 1892 the two "incumbents" met. The race was expected to be tight, so Gillam did not feel safe drawing with crossed fingers. His outlet was Judge Magazine. It was a Republican version of Puck, which was generally Democrat. Gillam had drawn the effective "Tattooed Man" cartoons at Keppler's side in 1884, be bolted and made Judge his new home.

Gillam's idea was to draw a political train wreck... and leave blank on his lithographers' stone the pertinent elements until the very last minute! This included the face of the losing candidate. One can discern that he expected, or hoped, that Cleveland would be the loser, because the body on the tracks is more like the corpulent Cleveland than the diminutive Harrison. But... Harrison's bearded and bewildered face was drawn in at the last moment. As were a few other elements, including the annoyed face of The Judge, the magazine's symbolic boss. And -- the elephant with the eye patch? Gillam originally intended that the animal would be a triumphant, rampaging GOP pachyderm.

Two more "in jokes" Gillam managed to fit in: lower left, the bitter face of Judge's publisher and Republican activist James Arkell; and Gillam's self-caricature on an upside-down monkey's body, with an arrow pointing to him from the signature. 

"Honesty is the best politics." 

-- Stan Laurel 

A Crowded Life in Comics –

Find the Winning Candidate.

– Joseph Keppler Self-Portrait –

Rick Marschall.

When I was in second grade, my father took me into lower Manhattan on many Saturdays. We had a usual agenda: coffee and nut and spice importers working out of warehouses on Chambers Street, where the World Trade Center later stood, and didn’t. The Record Hunter, uptown, where he would search for then-exotic European LPs of Baroque music. The main destination was Book Store Row, streets south of Union Square where approximately 125 used-book stores lived – cavernous, with balconies and bare light bulbs; or virtual closets off the sidewalks, so small and narrow that they only sold short-story collections, not novels. (No, but they were difficult to navigate if other bibliophiles  were there.)

I was barely able to read, but my love affair with books, even the aroma of old paper, began on those Saturdays. Most of those shops are gone now, and I have read where even the seven-miles-of-books Strand has been squeezed by the pandemic and Mayor di Blasio’s choleric view of the economy.

A counterpart of Schulte’s, and Biblo and Tannen, and Dauber and Pine, and other used-book stores of New York’s yesteryear, I discovered in Paris. No surprise – the legendary Shakespeare and Company. It was not the actual physical location of Sylvia Beach’s 1920s hangout of James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway, but I think some of the dust was from that era.

My pied-a-terre in Paris, when not staying with friends, is the centuries-old, tilted, somewhat aromatic, Hotel Esmeralda. It is on the Seine but requires guests in certain rooms (like no. 16, remember) to, appropriately, lean out the window and twist left in order to see the magnificent Notre Dame. (Why “appropriately”? The Hunchback’s love interest was Esmeralda, as you all know). But other rooms, if they have windows, look out upon the back of the hotel, enclosed on four sides and dreary. But one of the other sides is the back of Shakespeare and Company! Of course I knew I would have to call the Esmeralda, even with creaky, winding stairs and one lone breakfast table, my home – a great neighborhood.

(I would have put down roots at the Esmeralda anyway, as two great cartooning friends – Hugo Pratt and Nicole Lambert – recommended the place. A call from Hugo to Nestor would always somehow open up a room when otherwise booked.)

What a tangent. Forgive me. A Crowded Life in Tangents, I’m afraid.

I was talking about Book Store Row and my kidhood. Early discoveries of my own, encouraged but not initiated by my father, were old copies and volumes of Puck magazine. I have previously written here of “meeting” Keppler, Opper, Zim, Gillam, Glackens, and so many great talents. I also became acquainted with the great text humorists of the day, like Bill Nye.

Because Puck was also a political magazine, I perforce became familiar with the issues and politicos of the day; the arcane debates; as well as social manners and mores through panel cartoons and the great ads.

Here, pertinence: on my first discovery of a stack of 1880s Pucks, dad let me buy one – an 1882 issue with an Opper center spread, for a dollar. But another double-page cartoon in an 1880 issue caught my eye, and has remained a relic of fascination.

It was by Joseph Keppler, the talented founder of Puck, and appeared after the 1880 presidential election. The journal was a weekly, but deadline exigencies prevented the creation of cartoon that could address the campaign’s winner when the campaign was won (usually, of course).

What Keppler did – and I discovered when I assembled a complete run of Puck – was indulge a peculiar talent he had. He had an affinity for hiding faces in drawings. As much a puzzle-maker as a political cartoonist at times, Keppler was to construct such cartoons several times through the years. A realistic drawing, two realistic women representing the parties, a realistic landscape. It was arboreal dell, with a grandmother’s paisley shawl running through it.

The realism made it all the more challenging to embed portraits and caricatures of a dozen politicians. But there they are… if you can find them! Tree branches, rock formations, tangled bushes, all reveal the shapes of the candidates Garfield and Hancock; running-mates, senators, mayors, and crooks.

Why? To reveal the winning candidate, without revealing the winning candidate. Readers of Puck that week engaged themselves in checking lists and holding the magazine at all angles.

I became, through that cartoon, an even greater admirer of Joseph Keppler than I ever would have been, if that were possible.

I was reminded of that summer afternoon on Book Store Row, as an eight-year-old enthusiast; falling in love with Puck and Keppler and vintage cartoons and American history and politics all at once. And awestruck by the technical proficiency of a forgotten master.

... and of presidential campaigns too close to call.

It is bizarre that today, and in the hanging chads in Florida of recent memory, our elections are more difficult to resolve; that computers present challenges rather than facile solutions; that technology has become our enemy (or the friend of cheaters).

Whenever you read this, the United States might have a 46^th president. Or maybe not. Another reason that I hold “progress’ to be a faithless, teasing chimera.

Plus which, in those early days, the aroma of Yesterday’s Papers was akin to perfume. Take that to the Electoral College.

–30–

106

A Crowded Life in Comics –

What Fools These Mortals Be!

We could have chosen a hundred drawings, but this Puck cover from the last week of 1887 doubled as a subscription inducement, inviting readers to the sideshow nature of 1888’s presidential campaign year. By C J Taylor, who had begun his career on the Daily Graphic

By Rick Marschall

A mercifully brief column, this installment, because if I shared my enthusiasms and interplay with Puck Magazine throughout my Crowded Life, all the books in the world could not hold it. That is somewhat blasphemous, but I regard this old magazine with reverence, and its headquarters building in Manhattan as holy ground, so for the nonce, whatever that is, I will restrict my recollections to the iconic Puck Building, still standing.

Puck magazine was the brainchild of actor and cartoonist Joseph Keppler in Vienna. In 1871 he emigrated to St Louis, then the third-largest city in America and with the largest German population outside the Fatherland. He was friends with another aspiring journalist, also German-speaking immigrant, Joseph Pulitzer, in St Louis. Keppler founded and flopped with three cartoon / humor magazines (one named Puck) before moving to New York and becoming Leslie’s Weekly’s answer to Thomas Nast at Harper’s Weekly.

After several years in that prominent position, Keppler went independent and launched a cartoon / humor / satire / political weekly, Puck, in German. That was in the Fall of 1876, just as the presidential contest wound down. In March of 1877 he launched an English-language version, and it soon became the tail that wagged the dog.

Self-portrait of Joseph Keppler, from the luxury volume anthologizing his great work, from 1893. He autographed the limited copies of 300. Unexpectedly, Keppler died the next year, of overwork. His son Udo (Joseph Jr, thereafter) took over the magazine and, if anything, surpassed his father in proficiency and powerful concepts.

Keppler’s novelty – for there had been many comic magazines in America, none having really succeeded – was the color cartoon. At the time, color in newspaper or magazines was virtually non-existent; and Currier and Ives prints sold as separate sheets. Puck boasted front-page, back-page, and center-spread cartoons in lithographed color.

Before long Puck was a spectacular success. It gained a national circulation; was influential in politics, affecting election outcomes; and attracted talent to assist Keppler. The young H C Bunner joined as editor, poet, editorial writer, and short-story writer (his currently neglected reputation in that period genre is a shame).  Many cartoonists, chiefly Frederick Burr Opper, joined, and shined.

But I have broken my promise. Some other column(s), more about the magazine itself and its cartoonists, and my points of connection.

I was about in fourth grade, maybe younger, when I acquired my first issues, and then bound volumes, of Puck. My father visited Book Store Row, south of Union Square in Manhattan, every weekend, and brought me along. It is where I became infected by old books, the look of aged spines, the aroma of wonderful, rotting paper, and the exotic magic of ancient books, newspapers, and magazines.

I jumped on a copy of Puck from 1882, with an Opper centerspread in the old Biblo and Tannen shop. At the second-story bookstore of Leo Weitz I found the deluxe, limited, Pictures From Puck, leatherbound, signed by Keppler himself. I squealed with a 10-year-old’s joy. My father shushed me, whispering that we should appear indifferent, in order to strike a better bargain. But Mr Weitz noticed my enthusiasm, and said that to encourage my nascent bibliomania, he would make a gift of the book. He succeeded.

Once bitten, I was never shy again. Old volumes of Puck sold downtown (yes, they could be found then) for $25 a year. I started a paper route, and every penny went towards Pucks… and Lifes… and Judges…

Puck had started life in lower Manhattan on North William Street in a little place that was replaced by, I think, part of the Brooklyn Bridge construction. It moved into the impressive edifice bordered by Houston, Mulberry, Jersey, and Elm (now Lafayette) Streets, roughly east of SoHo. It shared the building with Jacob Ottmann Lithographers – who would print Puck – reportedly the largest steam-press lithographer in world.

In my timeline here, the building still stood, but was dingy, an embarrassing relic of its former self. The neighborhood was ratty – it still is – but the building, like an aged stage beauty, was faded, hinting of former glory. Its two outdoor statues of Puck himself, the Shakespearean mascot (“What fools these mortals be!” from Midsummer Night’s Dream), once gilded, likewise had faded, covered in soot and grime.

To me it all was magic, however. I had dreams that there were old storerooms or closets with piles of original drawings or old magazines; or that I could convince the owners to let me remove the statues and place them on my parents’ suburban lawn (I never shared this fantasy); maybe that there was an old oaken door with Mr Opper’s name on it…

On one trip to the city with my cousin Tommy, when I was old enough to indulge such jaunts without my sane father, we sought out the watchman, or super, or whatever he was. What he was was a boozy old guy in stained undershirt and suspenders. The building was, inside, as it was outside: grimy, half-empty office and lofts, burned-out lights. The polite kid asking about cartoons and presidential campaigns and original drawings, and Keppler and Opper and Bunner… Well, the old guy listened, belched, and said whatever the hell I was asking about is gone, long gone.

I will fast-forward. In the 1980s, developers took hold of the Puck Building to renovate it instead of demolishing it. Their idea was to transform it into the city’s premier location of artists’ lofts and creative space. A grand lobby would be for exhibitions. Offices became ateliers (that’s French for a studio with higher rent). Eventually, there would be grand, spacious living space on upper floors.

My friend Richard Samuel West, fellow Puckaholic with a biography of Keppler to his credit, was engaged to provide historical material for the literature and prospectus. There was a grand Grand Opening. Through the years movies and TV shows have been shot there. My beloved statues on the facing were sand-blasted, like the entire building, and re-gilded.

When the pixie-dust settled, Rich told me something I correctly had sensed 20 years earlier: there were stacks of old magazines, and volumes, and account books, and correspondence, in the recesses of the beautiful brick-Valhalla. He invited me to join in the purchase… to fill out our collections… and dispose – to make other maniacs like us happy.

Who would have thought? – well, I thought, and dreamed, and even acted. But the story had one more chapter, the ultimate salvage of buried treasures! What fool this mortal be… a happy fool for cartoons.

By the way, one of the developers was Kushner Properties, and tenants in the luxury living suite on the top floor are Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

🔶🔶🔶

79

Joseph Keppler, political cartoonist, at 175

[1] A dashing Keppler in Vienna, 1867.

by Richard Samuel West

Today, February 1, marks the 175th birthday of Joseph Keppler, the Austrian-American cartoonist who was the driving creative force behind Puck (1876-1918), America’s first successful humor magazine. Incidentally, this date also marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of my biography of Keppler, Satire on Stone (University of Illinois, 1988).

[2] Keppler painting scenery at the Apollo Theater in St. Louis, 1870.

The world of research has undergone a revolution in the last 25 years. I will give you one example from my own experience. When I was researching Satire on Stone, I tried to pin down the exact date of Keppler’s arrival in the United States. It was generally known to have been in 1867 but no more precise date had ever been given. I was living near Philadelphia then. I took the train to Washington, DC, and spent six or seven hours searching microfilm records (anyone who has done this knows how much fun that is!) of the manifests of ships traveling in 1867 from Germany to New Orleans, Keppler’s purported port of entry. I found nothing. In my book, Keppler’s date of arrival remained vague.

[3] Keppler, now the famous cartoonist, in New York, c. 1880.

Flash forward seventeen years. While doing research on the San Francisco Wasp, which would become my second book, I decided to employ the resources of Ancestry.com to see if I could turn up anything new on Keppler. Within a minute or two, right before my eyes on my home computer, was a picture of the passenger manifest for the recently built S.S. Cimbria of the Hamburg-American Packet Line, which sailed from Hamburg in early December and made port in New York City on December 24, 1867. The log contained the names of Keppler, his wife Minna (mistakenly recorded as “Anna”), and Keppler’s brother, Karl. What had been an expensive fruitless search in 1986 required a simple click of the mouse in 2003.

[4] Keppler late in life, c. 1892.

In Satire on Stone I quoted from a 19th century St. Louis source that said Keppler had arrived with Minna and her brother Harry. Now the story changed. Harry may have already been in St. Louis, awaiting their arrival, or maybe he came later, but they did not travel together. I already knew that brother Karl did not settle with Keppler in St. Louis; he chose to reside with their father, who had become a leading citizen of the little German-American town of New Frankfort, Mo. — located in northern Missouri, not southern Missouri as I said in Satire on Stone. (My error is perhaps understandable in light of the fact that the town no longer exists and finding information on it pre-computers was difficult.) There is still much to learn about Keppler. The facts are out there and they will eventually be unearthed, especially now that we are living in the digital age. Part of me is happy to have answered my simple question of so many years ago; part of me grinds my teeth over the laborious inefficiencies of the past.

[5] The front printer’s proof of the Liederkranz admission ticket, 1876

The internet also led me to several books and articles I did know existed in the 1980s. The first is a memoir published in 1910 by the Princess Helen von Racowitza, who was a friend of the Kepplers in the 1870s. The Princess provides us with a rare glimpse into Keppler’s home life. She became acquainted with Keppler and his wife Pauline in 1876, when she came to New York to perform the role of Clotilde in Sardou’s Fernande in a German-American theatre there. Later in the decade, after Puck’s success, the princess visited them in their grand home in Inwood Park on the northern tip of Manhattan. She recalls Keppler’s “dear little wife” saying to her: “Oh, Goldche” (she called me this in her strong Swabian dialect), “I often think all this glory is a dream; it can’t be true. I shall wake up one morning and find myself in my little house [of old].”

[6] The back printer’s proof of the Liederkranz admission ticket, 1876.

The second internet find was a tour of the Kepplers’ second home, a brownstone on East 79th Street, conducted in 1897 by the now widowed Mrs. Keppler for the New York Times (July 11, 1897). It provides us with a peek at Keppler’s lavish lifestyle: “Though portieres of sage velvet, brocaded with gold in French heraldic design, one passes into the parquetry-floored drawing room, embellished after the period of Louis Seize. The gold furniture is upholstered in Beauvais tapestry, and the walls are hung with shrimp pink and gold brocade, the frames of numerous oil paintings by Verestschagin, Kobalsky, Henner, Stiler, Rau, Kaulbach, with a life portrait of Wagner, by Gaul, blending into the background upon which they hang without a self-assertive shine. Some admirable examples of Italian statuary occupy pedestals places at effective points, and rival attention with that one cannot fail to give to a few wonderful colored terra-cotta figures by Strauss — an Arabian water carrier and a Japanese being full of life and expression. Two notable cabinets in this room, of antique Spanish fabrication, combine ebony, tortoise shell, and brass, skillfully intermingled, and are paneled with water colors executed by some deftly handled brush of a century or more ago. The grand piano, across which is thrown a fine specimen of embroidered silk, was especially constructed to harmonize with the decorative motif employed in this apartment and the second drawing room, which adjoins it.”

[7] The cover of the Liederkranz programme, 1876.

The third find was The History of the Liederkranz of the City of New York 1847-1947 (1948). (I committed the unforgiveable mistake in Satire on Stone of repeatedly misspelling the name of the society.) This book provided me with a better understanding of the centrality that this German singing and fraternal organization played in the lives of immigrants like Keppler. Keppler thrived on his connection with it. From at least 1876 to as late as 1889, Keppler played a leading role in the production of the Liederkranz annual masked ball. I have reproduced here his artistic efforts in support of the 1876 ball, including artist proofs of the elaborate ticket of admission, the cover and centerpread of the evening’s program, and the cover of the dinner menu. Clearly, this was a labor of love for him. His ties were so great to the club that he joined with other Liederkranz members around 1890 to build a cluster of vacation homes on a mountain top in the Catskills. I noted this in the book; what I did not say is now head-slappingly obvious to me: they named the community Elka Park after their beloved club (L-K, get it?).

[8] The centerspread of the Liederkranz programme, 1876.

So, in the intervening years since Satire on Stone was published, I have learned many intriguing bits and pieces about Keppler that add color to the story of his life. What has not changed for me are the big truths about Keppler. His work continues to astonish me with its polish and wit, and I still consider him the greatest draughtsman among 19th century American political cartoonists. I have however come to regard the work of his son Keppler Jr. in a new light, believing him to be superior to his great father as a political commentator. But that is a topic for another day.

[9] The cover of the Liederkranz dinner menu, 1876.

As for now, Happy Birthday, Joe. To all who wish to honor Keppler today, I suggest you indulge in a pastime close to his heart: slaking your thirst with a good German beer.

* Richard Samuel West’s latest book ‘Iconoclast in Ink; The Political Cartoons of Jay N. “Ding” Darling’ can be purchased HERE.