Caricature: The Wit & Humor of a Nation

1909ish (see below), Judge Company publisher
Caricature: The Wit & Humor of a Nation in Picture, Song & Story
Original price unknown, purchase price $5.50
Worn hardcover
D


My apologies to From 18 to 20.  That was not the worst book I own.  This is.  (I think.  Maybe I've blocked out the worst books.)  The reason why I bought it and have kept it is because it is such a product of its time and place.  Apparently a collection of the humor magazine Judge, covering a little bit over a year's worth of issues, it tells of an America where cars and airplanes are dangerous novelties, especially for bystanders, and where couples court in canoes.  The most notable cartoon is labeled "Fame (in 1957)," where a mother and little girl, still dressed vintage turn-of-the-century, have the following exchange:
"Say, ma, what does the word Carnegie mean?"
"Why, my dear, it was a certain kind of free public library they used to build."


The illustrations, ranging from pretty good to pretty awful, show what fashions and furnishings looked like.  (Not so much architecture, although there are some tenements.)  The text preserves slang and dialect.  Which brings me to one of the reasons this book is so bad.  Decades before political correctness, it was apparently perfectly acceptable to present ethnic humor with no nuance or irony.  Blacks, occasionally called "colored," but more often more derogatory terms, suffer the worst portrayals, both visually and verbally.  One cartoon shows two foppishly dressed "darkies," having this conversation:
"Ah'm told yo' Souf Carolinian delegates will be uninstructed."
" 'Deed, yas, sah.  We am free as air jes' so long as we do wot Mistah Cortelyou tells us."
George Cortelyou was the chairman of the Republican National Committee, and the implication here is that black delegates couldn't think for themselves.


Yes, I'm explaining a joke.  But then the jokes keep explaining themselves.  Every single one of them has a title, which often gives away the punchline.  In one case, the joke is also written in the illustration.  For a "humor" magazine, there's not much that's funny here.  Yes, it's over a century old, but Twain and much older writers are still funny.  In fact, the closest I came to cracking a smile was at some of the jokes I recognized from MAD and Reader's Digest recycling them.  (Punchline, "My feet smell and my nose runs," ha ha.)


Some of the jokes are submitted by readers, yes, like in Reader's Digest.  That's where many but by no means all of the ethnic jokes come from.  And while the blacks are shown as the worst, at times barely human, it is the Irish who are the go-to group for mockery, with sometimes three "Oirish" jokes in a row.  Surprisingly, considering the magazine was published in New York City, there aren't that many jokes about Eastern or Southern Europeans, except of course for Jews.  The Japanese are made fun of a few times, but more because of the Russo-Japanese War.


There is some political humor, even if it's most often a joke about teddy bears.  The front page lists 1909 as the publishing date but 1908 as the copyright date.  Since Taft is referred to as President in the later pages, I'm going with '09.


There's a little bit about suffragettes, but mostly women are shown as two general types, each with a subtype:  single and looking for a husband, whether desperately as a homely spinster, or cynically as an attractive Gibson girl; or married, either hen-pecking or calmly discussing divorce.  Few men are happily married, and the bachelors are too stupid to know how good they have it.  The stories in the book usually don't run past a page or two, but there's a two-parter about a man named "Twiggy" (yes, I know) whose friends get him into a fix with too many fiancees.


At the moment, eBay has a copy of the 1907 edition of Caricature going for $59.99.  I can't justify keeping this book, but I also find myself reluctant to part with it, because it is sort of fascinating in its awfulness and turn-of-the-century-ness.  Luckily, my boyfriend wants to add it to his collection of bound magazines, like 1850s Harper's.  So if I develop a craving to see ducks dressed as doctors, or read Bowery kids talking about romance, I know where to look.