Vila Wolf's Dyslexic Folklorist Ranting

1899 cartoon depicting Uncle Sam educating the “uncivilized" nations of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines.  

An interesting cartoon created after the Spanish American War and at the beginning of America’s global ambitions, the racial prejudice’s illustrated depict what was called "The White Mans Burden”, the belief that it was the duty of white European and American society to civilize and Christianize the rest of the world, even by force if necessary. Note the racial attitudes being shown by the cartoon, with people of color being depicted as crude caricatures and stereotypes.  In the background are an American Indian holding a book upside down, a Chinese boy at door, and a black boy cleaning a window. The other white children depicted are US States.  Originally published on p. 8-9 of the January 25, 1899 issue of Puck magazine.

Written on the blackboard: “The consent of the governed is a good thing in theory, but very rare in fact. — England has governed her colonies whether they consented or not. By not waiting for their consent she has greatly advanced the world’s civilization. — The U.S. must govern its new territories with or without their consent until they can govern themselves."

Caption:  "School Begins. Uncle Sam (to his new class in Civilization): Now, children, you’ve got to learn these lessons whether you want to or not! But just take a look at the class ahead of you, and remember that, in a little while, you will feel as glad to be here as they are!"

ca. 1865, [carte de visite collage portrait of Jefferson Davis “in disguise, as he appeared at the time of his capture"]

via the International Center of Photography, “President in Petticoats! Civil War Propaganda in Photographs" Exhibit

Johnny Canuck takes on Hitler. Read more here.

For the flag! For victory! — French propaganda poster from the First World War. Created by Georges Scott, printed by Davambez Imprimerie, Paris, for the Banque Nationale de Crédit.

(Imperial War Museum)

Cuba Libre: Union and confederate soldiers shaking hands in front of young female personification of Cuba, 1898 

LOC

These postcards were drawn by the political cartoonist Kem (Kimon Evan Marengo 1907-1988), who during the Second World War produced over 3,000 propaganda cartoons for the British Ministry of Information.

Kem prepared these between March and October 1942. The illustrations are based on five scenes from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. The battle between the Allies and the Axis powers was depicted here as the mythical battle between Fereydoon and Zahhak.

FYI: Fereydoon = good guy; Zahhak = bad guy with serpents growing out of his shoulders. In this series, Hitler is Zahhak. Click here for more.

Thru Sept 2: ”President in Petticoats!”  Civil War Propaganda in Photographs International Center of Photography (ICP) 1114 Ave of the Americas, NYC (@ 43rd St) As the American Civil War ground to a dispiriting and unheroic end after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s rebel forces and the shocking assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in mid-April 1865, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, became a political fugitive. At dawn on May 10, 1865, a contingent of Michigan cavalry captured Davis in a makeshift camp outside Irwinville, Georgia. In his haste to flee, Davis grabbed his wife’s overcoat rather than his own. News reports immediately circulated that Davis had been apprehended in women’s clothes and that he was attempting to disguise himself as a woman. Northern artists and caricaturists seized upon these rumors of cowardly escape and created wildly inventive images, some using photomontage, to sensationalize the political story. Photographers circulated and even pirated dozens of fanciful photographic cards; many used a photographic portrait of Davis on a hand-drawn body in a woman’s dress, hat, and crinoline, but wearing his own boots, the detail that supposedly betrayed him to his captors.

May 7, 1915: A German U-boat sinks the RMS Lusitania.

Before Lusitania left New York for Ireland on May 1, 1915, a message from the German Embassy was printed in dozens of American newspapers, warning any who boarded the British liner that they were risking their lives in doing so:

Despite this warning, 1,265 people boarded the ship as passengers, including over a hundred American citizens. Ships sailing through war zones constantly ran the risk of attack, but Lusitania’s voyage (despite some submarine warnings) went fairly smoothly. However, as Lusitania neared the coast of Ireland on May 7, the SM U-20, a U-boat that happened to be in the right place at the right time, fired a single torpedo at the ship. She sunk in only eighteen minutes. Unlike Titanic, Lusitania reportedly had more than enough lifeboats for all its passengers to evacuate to safety - yet 1,195 people died of the 1,959 aboard, including 128 Americans. 

The British and Americans were understandably outraged; some condemned the attack as a war crime. German officials countered that the sinking was justified, because Lusitania had (according to their official statement) been carrying “large quantities of war material in her cargo” at the time of her sinking. Stubbornly upstanding President Wilson declared that “there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right”, affirming his intention to keep his country neutral. Even so, the sinking of Lusitania had permanently turned the opinion of the American public against Germany, although it would take strikes against their own ships to push the United States to enter the war. 

An incredibly vast collection of Soviet Space Propaganda Posters from 1958-1963 over at Retronaut this morning and so very worth a click-through because every single piece is kind of astounding in a good way.