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‘Sport for Grown Children’: American Political Cartoons, 1790–1850

2011; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 8-9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09523367.2011.567779

1743-9035

Kenneth J. Cohen,

Sport and Mega-Event Impacts

Abstract This article explores the emergence of sporting-themed political cartoons in early nineteenth-century America. By using material culture and archaeological methodologies, rather than a traditional visual culture approach, it both explains the genre's development in terms of context (a changing electoral system) and also situates the cartoons within a wider range of sources revealing sport's broader function in that context. In the end, the 'sporting political cartoon' appears as an efficient and persuasive symbol, but just one part, of a larger project involving the application of a contentious white masculine sporting culture to party politics. Keywords: sporthistorypoliticsmethodpolitical cartoonsearly America Notes 1. Boller, Presidential Campaigns, 33–41. 2. On publication timing see Weitenkampf, Political Caricature, 21. 3. There is no comprehensive catalogue for American prints in this period. The largest collections belong to the Library of Congress and American Antiquarian Society. At the Library of Congress (LOC), 39 of 273 political cartoons (14%) in the American Cartoon Prints Collection contained sporting themes. At the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), 41 of 411 items (10%) with a 'political cartoon' call number contained these themes.. For these numbers and the total growth of political cartoons, see www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html; catalog.mwa.org/. 4. For the modern technical distinction between 'game' and 'sport', see Blanchard, Anthropology of Sport, 42–50; Guttmann, A Whole New Ball Game, 1–5. For the ties between 'sport' and 'unpredictability', see Edward Lloyd to John Cadwalader, 27 Dec. 1772, Cadwalader Papers, Gen. John Cadwalader Series, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter HSP); 'Diary of Robert Gilmor', 27 Feb.–1 March 1827. Monthly racing reports in the 'Sporting Intelligence' section of the American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine (1829–1844) also use the term in this way. For modern historians' notion of 'sporting culture', see Cohen et al, The Flash Press. 5. Herman, The Stolen House, 1–14. 6. Deetz, Flowerdew Hundred, 158–63. 7. For cartoons as 'compressed narratives' see Huggins, 'Cartoons and Comic Periodicals', 124–50. 8. For the strong emphasis on applying context and critical theory to interpret images in visual culture studies see the selections in Evans and Hall, Visual Culture; Mirzoeff, The Visual Culture Reader. For the difference between material culture and visual culture theory see Bolin and Blandy, 'Beyond Visual Culture', 246–247, 250–251. 9. For leading examples, see Adelman, A Sporting Time; Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle Class, 190–230; Gorn, The Manly Art; Martin, Killing Time; Struna, People of Prowess; Ann Fabian describes the class connotations of gambling that were constructed despite cross-class participation in Card Sharps. On the tendency to analyse sport as a reflective 'mirror', and therefore see its relationship to society as 'a simple unidirectional one. Society affected sports', see Struna, 'Sport History', 162. 10. Fowble, Two Centuries of Prints in America, 1680–1880, 1–21. 11. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, 1, 78. On republicanism, sport and gambling, see Withington, Toward a More Perfect Union, 10–16, 186–99. 12. Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1700–1802, 4, 383–390. See also Laws of the State of New Jersey, 1703–1820, 267–268. 13. Rahway and Woodbridge Petitions, 16 Jan. and 18 Jan. 1811, Petitions, New Jersey State Archives; Laws of the State of New Jersey, 1800–1807, 470–2. 14. Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, 122–38, 300. 15. The Papers of George Washington, available at http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/farewell/original.html; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 201–7. 16. Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 219–27. William Charles, 'A Boxing Match, or Another Bloody Nose for John Bull' (Philadelphia: 1813), American Antiquarian Society (AAS), Worcester MA. 17. For other examples see Anthony Imbert, 'Set-to Between Old Hickory and Bully Nick', (New York: 1832), Library Company of Philadelphia; Edward Williams Clay, 'Political Race Course – Union Track – Fall Races, 1836' (New York: 1836), AAS; John Magee, 'The Great Presidential Race of 1856' (Philadelphia: 1856), Library of Congress (LOC), Washington, DC. 18. Western Monthly Magazine, Sept. 1834, 479. For the political changes noted in the last two paragraphs, see Altschuler and Blumin, The Rude Republic, 12–50; Formisano, The Transformation of Political Culture, 173–267. 19. For examples of British sporting-themed cartoons published before elections, see 'Brentford Sweepstakes', Town and Country, 13 April 1769; Isaac Cruikshank, 'Westminster Races' (London: 1784), LOC; unknown artist, 'City Election Race for the Court Plate' (London: 1790), LOC; John Tenniel, 'Dizzy Wins With "Reform Bill"', published in Punch, 25 May 1867. 20. The persistence of republican rhetoric and values prevents framing this shift as a clear move from republicanism to liberalism, as does Watson, Liberty and Power, 42–72. On the broader acceptance of deception, see Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women, 153–90. 21. Isaac Mickle Diary, 14 Jan. 1844, Mickle Family Papers, Camden County Historical Society. Bank, Theatre Culture in America, 98–118. 22. Imbert, 'Set-to' (1832); Charles Seatsfeld, 'Annexation, or, Sport for Grown Children' (New York: 1845), AAS. 23. William R. Browne, 'A Political Game of Brag' (New York: 1831), AAS. 24. J. Bucholzer, 'Footrace, Pennsylvania Avenue' (New York: 1844), AAS. 25. Forester, The Horses of America, 1, 191. Wainwright, A Philadelphia Perspective, 105. For the difference between stands and concourses, see American Turf Register, May 1836, 422; May 1837, 421–3. 26. Turf Register, Nov. 1844, 674–8. For similar examples, see Benjamin Brown French Diary, 7 May 1838, 18 May 1838, Benjamin B. French Family Papers, LOC. 27. Ely's Hawk and Buzzard, 21 Sept. 1833; Ingraham, The South-West, By a Yankee, 129. 28. Ely's Hawk and Buzzard, 21 Sept. 1833; Janson, The Stranger in America, 208–10; Bailey, Life and Adventures, 64. Turf Register, May 1836, 422–3. 29. Pickering, Inquiries of an Emigrant, 35. 30. Christian Watchman, 2 June 1821. See also Harper's Weekly, 30 Oct. 1858; Stansell, City of Women, 94–100. 31. Foster, New York In Slices, 49–50; Turf Register, June 1833, 182–185. For examples outside of New York, see Journal of Lewis Beebe, vol. 2, March 1800, HSP; Greene, Gambling Unmasked!, 65. 32. 'Letters on the Eastern States', North American Review, July 1820, 79–80. On risk, see Sandage, Born Losers, 1–98. 33. The New-Yorker, 25 Aug. 1838; Gorn, The Manly Art, 139–140. Findlay, People of Chance, 1–101; Lears, Something for Nothing, 68–75, 100–36. 34. Melish, 'The "Condition" Debate'; Stenfield, 'Property and Suffrage in the Early American Republic'. 35. Power, Impressions of America, 1, 127–18; 2, 58–9; Childs, Rice Planter and Sportsman, 19–20; Turf Register, May 1836, 421. 36. Chused, 'Married Women's Property Law'. 37. For 'public wagers', see Kenneth Cohen, '"The Entreaties and Perswasions of our Acquaintance"' . 38. Drake, Tales and Sketches from the Queen City, 76; Sealsfield, Life in the New World, 16; Ely's Hawk and Buzzard, 29 Sept. 1832. See also Taylor, 'Art of Hook and Snivey', 1386. 39. Richard Ten Broeck to William Ransom Johnson, 29 July 1844, Pegram-Johnson-MacIntosh Papers, William Ransom Johnson Correspondence, Virginia Historical Society (VHS), Richmond, VA. 40. American Turf Register, June 1832, 523–5; Breck and Worner, 'Horse Racing in Lancaster', 45–50; Articles of Agreement, William B. Vinson and Andrew Jackson, June 1809, Papers of Andrew Jackson, 2:217–218. Miles, 'President Adams' Billiard Table'. 41. Gideon Welles Diary, 28 June 1846, cited in Remini, Henry Clay, 251–3; Andrew Jackson to Andrew Jackson, Jr., 13 May 1832, 19 May 1832 in Bassett, Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, 4, 438–41. 42. Morgan, Inventing the People, 174–208; Thompson, Rum Punch and Revolution, 111–44; Tully, Forming American Politics, 340–52. 43. Works linking working-class radicalism and masculinity without referencing cross-class sporting culture include Greenberg, Advocating the Man, esp. 1–10, 119–89; Laurie, Artisans into Workers, 15–112; Wilentz, Chants Democratic, 145–296.