Uncle Sam's Annual Celebration, Fire-Works of the Period, from "The Judge"
Thomas B. Worth American
Not on view
This caricature appeared in the New York weekly The Judge soon after its 1881 launch; the publication was formed by artists who seceded from Puck Magazine. Centered on an inebriated Uncle Sam, the image suggests a country gone astray. Wearing a suit tailored out of the national flag, the goateed, top-hatted figure steadies himself against a disapproving statue of George Washington, fires a pistol, and waves a scroll inscribed with the words "4th [of] July Oration." Buzzing fireworks in the sky point to controversies of the moment—"Intemperance," "Mormonism," "Wall Street," and "Toy Guns." Mormon polygamy was widely debated in the early 1880s, and newspapers often reported statistics of boys injured by toy guns sold as harmless playthings.
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