Original Hand-colored Lithograph - "The Tables Turned"

Descripción

Original hand-colored lithograph and political cartoon depicting caricatures of an imprisoned Denis Kearney and an audience of Chinese immigrants. Hand-colored using watercolors in blue, yellow, brown, red, and orange. No date, circa 1877 or 1878. 14" x 11." Cartoon is very clean and intact except for slight wear to extremities, slight age toning, and minimal rubbing to front and back. A Fine copy. Political cartoon lampooning Denis Kearney (1847-1907), an Irish-American labor leader and one of the founders of the Workingmen's Party of California. Kearney gained notoriety for his openly racist, violent, and vitriolic language leveled at Chinese immigrants, who he blamed for the economic hardships of working-class white men. Other frequent targets in Kearney's speeches were capitalists and members of the press. He was arrested on several occasions for inciting violence. Although he was initially popular in California, Kearney became increasingly alienated for his anti-Chinese and anti-capitalist rhetoric and arrests. Kearney's faded into relative obscurity by the 1880s. In this cartoon, Kearney is shown in a prison cell ("House of Correction," cell "181") with a sullen look on his face, ball and chain around one ankle, as Chinese laundrymen and fishmongers say, "You sabe him? Kealney must go!" ["You save him? Kearney must go!"; this may be a jab at one of Kearney's oft-used slogans at his speeches and rallies, "The Chinese must go!"]. The Chinese immigrants offer gifts to him, one of which is a fish with the words, "Black Friday," on it, a possible reference to the Black Friday gold panic of 1869. The cartoon directly references Kearney's arrest for inciting a riot in late 1877 or early 1878. The cartoon was published by Isadore (or, Isidor) Nathan Choynski (1834-1899), a Jewish-American journalist and bookseller based in San Francisco. N° de ref. del artículo 024340

Contactar al vendedor

Denunciar este artículo

Detalles bibliográficos