Allison Stagg

The American Dressing Academy: a venue for early American caricature prints

The American caricature print All in my eye! (fig. 1) provides previously unknown information on how an early nineteenth century audience might have seen and purchased caricature prints. In 1806, the caricaturist James Akin (1773-1846) depicted the basic interior of a New England barbershop. He included a back wall consisting of caricature prints, which would have been available to a male clientele either waiting for a service or being served by the barber.1 Two of the caricatures appear to have been framed while the remaining prints have been tacked to the wall with large pins (see detail of fig. 1 in fig. 2).2 The scene represented by James Akin visually supports contemporary evidence found in newspapers that allude to caricature prints being available for purchase and on view in barbershops. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century barbers, much like book or print shops, frequently advertised the arrival of new caricature prints on offer. Examples can be found in newspapers along the east coast of North America, by one popular barber and a subject of this paper, John Richard Desborous Huggins, advertising, “Just received and for sale, a large collection of European and American Caricatures.”3 The discovery of the Akin caricature is recent, found in 1991 in a bound album that contained other previously unknown caricatures attributed to James Akin. For the first time, however, this article takes Akin’s print as starting point for a more detailed discussion of how early American satirical engravings were viewed and by whom in the early Republic.4

Rare Finds – Popular Consumption

In America at the turn of the nineteenth century, separately published engraved caricature prints were made with surprisingly little regularity. Between 1789 and 1809, a tumultuous twenty-year period in the early American Republic that spanned the first three presidents of the United States, George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, few native artists engaged with visual satire. Not until the beginning of the 1820s and with an increased interest in the European mode of lithography, a form of printmaking that enabled prints to be cheaply produced, did American artists begin to publish caricature in any large numbers. With so few caricature prints made at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a natural assumption might be that this imagery was unimportant, that these prints were less commonly seen, or that there was a limited audience; however, a number of primary documents have suggested otherwise.

Early nineteenth century caricature prints that survive today offer distinctive clues as to how they were handled and seen by citizens. For example, many of the caricature prints that can be examined from this period have creases and indentations where the paper was folded to be mailed in letters or to be passed to friends. As illustrated by Akin’s work mentioned above, some prints contain small holes in the corners of the paper from when they were tacked with pins to a wall or to a door; others have evidence that perhaps at some time they were placed in bound albums, collected with other ephemeral visual material. Occasionally a former owner or viewer will have helpfully added in ink the names of those figures represented on a caricature print or clarifications of the subject matter. The majority of caricature prints during this period was published anonymously and left unsigned. This has led to a lack of information regarding how and why these prints were made; indeed even the knowledge as to where many of these artists accessed printing presses to print the caricatures are unclear. Information on this imagery is instead gleaned from contemporary newspapers, which provide published notices in which the arrival of caricature prints was announced, and in primary documents, such as letters written by politicians which described caricatures to friends and family – particularly those where they found themselves the unwanted subject of such imagery. As evidenced in these archival documents, caricature prints, while published infrequently in small numbers, were part of the fabric of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century American society.

The Cultures of Caricatures in the U.S. and in Britain by Comparison

Because of the numerous announcements located in newspapers it is known that caricature prints in America were sold primarily in book and print shops; advertisements announced new caricatures on offer and where such prints can be purchased. Markedly different were the processes of marketing/consuming caricatures in London, which was the center of production of caricature prints during this period. Subject matter found in British caricatures provide visual evidence as to how these prints were seen by a various London audience. An example can be found in James Gillray’s popular print, Very Slippy-Weather (fig. 3) of 1808. Every pane of the large shop window for the print publisher Hannah Humphrey contains a caricature print. The largely male audience look over the latest colorful prints while inside the shop two further gentleman examine another print, perhaps with the intention of purchase. All the figures are so engaged in looking at the caricature prints on display that they are oblivious to the falling gentleman in the foreground.

Although Gillray depicted an all-male audience in his print, men were not the only viewers of such imagery. As print shops owners placed caricature prints in windows facing towards the street, women too would pass and see the colorful arrangements. Another early nineteenth century British example published in 1801 and entitled, Caricature Shop (fig. 4) provides further indications to this depicting a more diverse crowd with a variety of figures that included men, women, and even children, clamoring to see the prints on view, while the shopkeeper looks on in the doorway.

Alongside contemporary archival documentation, these British satirical prints account for a greater understanding as to the prevalence of caricature prints in everyday life in London during this period, what has been largely regarded as the “Golden Age of Caricature”.5 In contrast evidence of how caricature prints were publically seen in early American cities has been far less forthcoming. Some information has been gleaned from newspapers but this is rather limited and vague. For example, one rare notice was printed in 1797 as an anecdote about the streets of Philadelphia and reads, “A Mechanic in this city in passing by the British Printer’s door on Monday, observed a number of people gazing at a print in the window – It appeared to be a caricature…”.6 In the late eighteenth century, the majority of American commercial establishments could be found inside private residences and the location of these shops were only distinguishable by signs hanging outside, although at the start of the nineteenth century shop owners began to introduce large windows opening onto the street.7 While the British caricature prints by Gillray and others show the modern viewer how caricatures may have been seen in such windows, it is unclear if such a practice was relatively common in America. Newspapers in this period frequently included advertisements that announced the arrival of new American caricatures in addition to imported British caricatures. Rather unfortunately, without more detailed descriptions or visual evidence, little else can be discerned as to how caricature prints were displayed within these shops. For example, questions remain unanswered as to whether caricature prints were proudly exhibited in the windows of print shops, as seen in the Gillray caricature of 1808, or if they were kept inside, away from a passing consumer audience. Did print shop owners in American cities focus their attention on such imagery or were caricature prints relegated to the back of the shops?

The New York Barbershop as Venue for the Display of American Caricatures

In 1933, William Murrell published the first monograph to provide social, historical, and political context for American caricature prints. Published in two volumes, A History of American Graphic Humor, Murrell asserted in volume one, covering caricature prints made in America between 1747 and 1865, that, “Within a few years after the opening of the 19th century graphic humor in America, though still of irregular production, began to receive more attention, both from designers and engravers and the general public.”8 Despite being published nearly a century ago, this publication is still the standard reference for scholars, curators, and historians interested in American caricature prints. It was Murrell who first made the connection between early American caricature and the barbershop when he referenced the nineteenth century New York City barber, John Richard Desborous Huggins. Little is known about Huggins, who was active as a barber in New York between 1801 and 1808. During this period, Huggins regularly published satirical and witty advertisements in local New York newspapers. In 1808, he collected his advertisements, publishing the most popular in what became a rather unsuccessful venture, a bound volume titled, Hugginiana; or Huggins’ Fantasy, being a Collection of the most esteemed modern Literary Productions.9

Huggins’s advertisements, some of which were reprinted in his Hugginiana, include detailed descriptions of the decoration and display found in his New York barbershop. Indeed he elaborated on at least one caricature print that could be found on his walls, interestingly, another print by the James Akin, the artist responsible for All in my eye!. The print Huggins referred to in his newspaper advertisement was of Thomas Jefferson and titled, The Prairie Dog Sickened at the Sting of the Hornet or a Diplomatic Puppet exhibiting his Deceptions! (fig. 5).

John Richard Desborous Huggins was but one barber in a city of many that took to newspapers to advertise their shops to customers. Huggins appears to have not been isolated in decorating his shop, located by 1802 at the fashionable address of 92 Broadway in New York City, with the latest caricature prints. So common were caricature prints in barbershops, that one newspaper notice remarked, “It is a general custom, and has existed almost since the memory of man, for barbers to adorn their shops with pictures and charicatures [sic].”10 Even still, barbers took to newspapers to announce the many services offered and mentioned the arrival of new forms of entertainment for the waiting gentleman customer. A direct competitor to Huggins, the barber H.J. Hassey, commented in a advertisement published in New York in 1806 that his shop was now complete with new caricature prints, stating, “The eye may be gratified with a new collection of caricatures, by the latest and ablest masters, exhibiting the moral character rendered ridiculous by the adoption of fugitive folly.”11

Unfortunately, the majority of such advertisements are rather ambiguous in their information on caricature prints. Similarly to Hassey’s advert, Huggins published advertisements that included vague information about the political caricatures he received. For example, in July of 1805, Huggins announced in a New York newspaper, “Just received and for sale, a large collection of European and American Caricatures.”12 While these adverts provide evidence that caricature prints could be seen in barbershops, it is not known to what extent these prints were sold or for how much they were sold for.

In 1798, a hairdresser by the name of Gardner who had a barbershop that was located across the Hudson River in Newark, New Jersey announced that his shop had caricatures on offer for customers to consider while services were being employed, “His shop is embellished with a variety of caricatures, and the daily papers, to beguile the tedious moments of operation.”13 This is a rather subtle hint at what the barbershop often transformed into when a group of men were waiting for services: temporary committee rooms and spaces of political debate and discussion. British caricatures showing the interior of barbershops frequently included male customers engaged in reading newspapers. For example, in a late eighteenth century British caricature by Henry William Bunbury (fig. 6) in which a group of male customers can be seen; the character on the left reads a newspaper, his face in shock by the news on the pages. Caricature prints, particularly those that were political, would not have been out of place in such an environment.

For Male Eyes Only?

Adding to this was the common belief, albeit not a widespread acceptance, that caricature prints were not for a female audience but instead were intended for men only. This was initially perpetuated by a number of essays and letters published in newspapers, including one lengthy notice located in the New York newspaper, The Daily Advertiser. The reprinted letter, supposedly written by a mother to her daughter and titled, “on the manner of passing Sunday rationally and agreeably” contained a long list of acceptable Sunday activities, as well as a passing reference to what a fine young lady should not do on a Sunday. A passage from the letter concerns the growing interest in caricature prints by noting their availability in local shops,

“…looking over prints and drawings [which] is an innocent and rational amusement. I do not however recommend the caricatures, and political prints, with which our shops are at present crowded; they may amuse but cannot instruct; but historical prints, prints of illustrious persons, views of places, figures, of plants and animals, are at once instructive and entertaining.”14

Other newspaper notices continued the notion that caricature prints were of a low art form not worthy to be considered, and this letter appears to agree with this, as it recommends that while caricature prints may be amusing, they were not useful as an educational source. Politicians, particularly those that found themselves the subject matter of such imagery, appear to have thought otherwise, often sending caricature prints in letters to their most trusted confidants: female members of their households, such as their wives and daughters.