Uncle Sam Whittling
Date1884
Artist
Charles Nelan
(American cartoonist, 1858–1904)
Illustration CitationDate and place of publication not identified
MediumInk on illustration board
Dimensionssheet: 8 × 7 in. (20.3 × 17.8 cm)
Credit LineGift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1978
Object number1978-123
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextConsidered America's first syndicated editorial cartoonist, Charles Nelan depicts an apparently do-nothing government in the person of a whittling Uncle Sam. Nelan's cartoons of Pennsylvania governor Samuel Pennypacker so infuriated him that the governor forced through a law that made it illegal to draw people (by which he meant politicians) as "beast, bird, fish, insect, or other inhuman animal." The law was not enforced, and was repealed in 1907, in response to press and public outrage.
