'Inspecting the Democratic Curiosity Shop' cartoon   Save
Political Cartoons Collection
Description: This cartoon shows the Democratic presidential candidate in 1880, General Winfield Scott Hancock, inspecting a selection of exhibits demonstrating the association of the Democrats with the Southern cause in the recent Civil War. Looking at a donkey, the traditional symbol of the Democratic party, made up of two hindquarters sewn together, Hancock exclaims: "Great Scott! Am I to be head of that?" The donkey symbolizes the difficulty the Democrats had in re-defining themselves as a national party after the Civil War. Other shameful "curiosities" in the "shop" include an Andersonville skeleton, the Ku Klux Klan, a slave-tracking bloodhound, a whipping post, John Wilkes Booth's pistol and more. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: CA11_P143
Subjects: United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865; Reconstruction Era; Presidential campaigns; Democratic Party; Confederate States of America; Political cartoons;
Places: Political Cartoons Collection