''Puck'' was the first successful

humor magazine A humor magazine is a magazine specifically designed to deliver humorous content to its readership. These publications often offer satire and parody, but some also put an emphasis on cartoons, caricature, absurdity, one-liners, witty aphorisms ...

in the United States of colorful

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

caricature A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...

s and

political satire Political satire is a type of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics. Political satire can also act as a tool for advancing political arguments in conditions where political speech and dissent are banned. Political satir ...

of the issues of the day. It was founded in 1876 as a German-language publication by

Joseph Keppler Joseph Ferdinand Keppler (February 1, 1838 – February 19, 1894) was an Austrian-born American cartoonist and caricaturist who greatly influenced the growth of satirical cartooning in the United States. Joseph F. Keppler was the father of Udo ...

, an Austrian immigrant cartoonist. ''Puck'''s first English-language edition was published in 1877, covering issues like New York City's Tammany Hall, presidential politics, and

social issues A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's control. Soc ...

of the late 19th century to the early 20th century. "Puckish" means "childishly mischievous". This led Shakespeare's Puck character (from ''

A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...

'') to be recast as a charming near-naked boy and used as the title of the magazine. ''Puck'' was the first magazine to carry illustrated advertising and the first to successfully adopt full-color

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

printing for a weekly publication. ''Puck'' was published from 1876 until 1918.

Publication history

After working with '' Leslie's Illustrated Weekly'' in New York – a well-established magazine at the time – Keppler created a satirical magazine called ''Puck,''. The weekly magazine was founded by Keppler in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. Keppler had begun publishing German-language periodicals in 1869, though they failed. In 1871, he attempted another cartoon weekly, ''Puck'', which lasted until August 1872. Then in 1876, he again began publishing ''Puck'' in German. Interested backers wanted ''Puck'' in English so he published it in both languages for 15 years until he ceased the German version. In 1877, after gaining wide support for an English version of ''Puck,'' Keppler published its first issue in English. The first English edition was 16 pages long and was sold for 16 cents. Sometime before 1887, ''Puck'' moved its editorial offices from St. Louis to New York City. In May 1893, Puck Press published ''A Selection of Cartoons from Puck by Joseph Keppler (1877–1892)'' featuring 56 cartoons chosen by Keppler as his best work. Also during 1893, Keppler temporarily moved to Chicago and published a smaller-format, 12-page version of ''Puck'' from the Chicago World's Fair grounds. Shortly thereafter, Joseph Keppler died, and Henry Cuyler Bunner, editor of ''Puck'' since 1877 continued the magazine until his own death in 1896. Harry Leon Wilson replaced Bunner and remained editor until he resigned in 1902. Joseph Keppler Jr. then became the editor. The English-language magazine continued in operation for more than 40 years under several owners and editors, until it was bought by the

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His extravagant methods of yellow jou ...

company in 1916 (ironically, one 1906 cartoon mocked Hearst's bid for Congress with his newspapers' cartoon characters). The Hearst conglomerate discontinued the political material and switched to fine art and social fads. Within 2 years, subscriptions fell off and Hearst stopped publication; the final edition was distributed on September 5, 1918.

London edition

A London edition of ''Puck'' was published between January 1889 and June 1890. Among contributors was the English cartoonist and political satirist Tom Merry.

Content

The magazine consisted of 16 pages measuring 10 inches by 13.5 inches with front and back covers in color and a color double-page

centerfold The centerfold or centrefold of a magazine is the inner pages of the middle Folio, sheet, usually containing a portrait, such as a pin-up or a Nudity, nude. The term can also refer to the model featured in the portrait. In saddle-stitched maga ...

. The cover always quoted Puck saying, "What fools these mortals be!" The jaunty symbol of Puck is conceived as a

putto A putto (; plural putti ) is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and very often winged. Originally limited to profane passions in symbolism,Dempsey, Charles. ''Inventing the Renaissance Putto''. University ...

in a top hat who admires himself in a hand-mirror. He appears not only on the magazine covers but over the entrance to the

Puck Building The Puck Building is a mixed-use building at 295–309 Lafayette Street in the SoHo, Manhattan, SoHo and Nolita neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. The building was designed by Albert Wagner (architect), Albert Wagner i ...

in New York's Nolita neighborhood, where the magazine was published, as well. ''Puck'' gained notoriety for its witty, humorous cartoons and was the first to publish weekly cartoons using chromolithography in place of wood engraving, offering three cartoons instead of one. In its early years of publication, ''Pucks cartoons were largely printed in black and white, though later editions featured colorful, eye-catching lithographic prints in vivid color. A typical 32-page issue contained a full-color political cartoon on the front cover and a color non-political cartoon or

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

on the back cover. There was always a double-page color centerfold, usually on a political topic. There were numerous black-and-white cartoons used to illustrate humorous anecdotes. A page of editorials commented on the issues of the day, and the last few pages were devoted to advertisements.

Anticatholicism

The magazine was founded by German immigrants who were sympathetic to

Otto von Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...

who launched a major

Kulturkampf In the history of Germany, the ''Kulturkampf'' (Cultural Struggle) was the seven-year political conflict (1871–1878) between the Catholic Church in Germany led by Pope Pius IX and the Kingdom of Prussia led by chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Th ...

against the Catholic Church in Germany. ''Puck'' especially targeted Irish Catholics in New York City, where they controlled

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local ...

. According to historian Samuel Thomas, himself a Catholic:

an age of partisan politics and partisan journalism, ''Puck'' became the nation's premier journal of graphic humor and political satire, played an important role as a non-partisan crusader for
good government Good governance is the process of measuring how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources and guarantee the realization of human rights in a manner essentially free of abuse and corruption and with due regard for the ...
and the triumph of American constitutional ideals. Its prime targets, however, were not just corrupt machine politicians. The magazine included as well ... hepolitical agenda of the Catholic Church, especially its new Pope,
Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII (; born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2March 181020July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 until his death in July 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of Peter the A ...
....
Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local ...
... was all the more dangerous to ''Puck'' because, beginning in the 1870s, Irish Catholics dominated it.... In cartoons and editorials spanning two decades, the magazine blasted and often conjoined both Tammany and the papacy with invidious comparisons that left few readers in doubt as to their sympathies.

Contributors

Over the years, ''Puck'' employed many early cartoonists of note, including, Louis Dalrymple, Bernhard Gillam, Friedrich Graetz, Livingston Hopkins, Frederick Burr Opper, Louis Glackens, Albert Levering, Frank Nankivell, J. S. Pughe, Rose O'Neill, Charles Taylor, James Albert Wales, and Eugene Zimmerman.

Puck Building

''Puck'' was housed from 1887 in the landmark Chicago-style,

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended t ...

at Lafayette and

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

streets, New York City. The steel-frame building was designed by architects Albert and Herman Wagner in 1885, as the world's largest

lithographic Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German ...

pressworks under a single roof, with its own electricity-generating

dynamo "Dynamo Electric Machine" (end view, partly section, ) A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator. Dynamos employed electromagnets for self-starting by using residual magnetic field left in the iron cores ...

. It takes up a full block on Houston Street, bounded by Lafayette and

Mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of 19 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 subordinat ...

streets.

Legacy

Years after its conclusion, the "Puck" name and slogan were revived as part of the ''Comic Weekly'' Sunday comic section that ran on Hearst's newspaper chain beginning in September 1931 and continuing until the 1970s. It was then revived again by Hearst's ''

Los Angeles Herald Examiner The ''Los Angeles Herald Examiner'' was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published in the afternoon from Monday to Friday and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst Corporation, Hearst syndicate. It was formed w ...

'', which folded in 1989.

Gallery of ''Puck'' cartoons

File:Schurz Forester1.jpg, U.S. Secretary of the Interior

Carl Schurz Carl Christian Schurz (; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German-American revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He migrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent ...

accosts

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

James G. Blaine chopping down a tree in the forest, c. 1878 File:Puck - Carl Edler von Stur - Go West! 1881-2.jpg, European Royalties: Go West! (after assassination of

Alexander II of Russia Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Poland and Grand Du ...

), March 30, 1881 File:Emoticons Puck 1881 with Text.png,

Emoticons An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for emotion icon, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers and letters—to express a person's feelings, mood or reaction, without needin ...

, March 30, 1881 File:PUCK1881-Joseph Keppler-President Garfield (NYPL).jpg, President James A. Garfield, ''Auf seinem Posten gefällt'', July 6, 1881 File:PuckMagazineCoverGoneToMeetJohnKelly11091881.jpg, ''Gone to meet John Kelly'' ( Hugh McLaughlin, the Irish Catholic political "boss" of

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

) being deposited in "

Hades Hades (; , , later ), in the ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the Greek underworld, underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea ...

" (hell), November 9, 1881 cover File:PUCK-Monopoly Millionaires Dividing the Country.jpg, German edition: Monopoly Millionaires Dividing the Country (

William Henry Vanderbilt William Henry Vanderbilt (May 8, 1821 – December 8, 1885) was an American businessman Known as "Billy", he was the eldest son of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, an heir to his fortune and a prominent member of the Vanderbilt family. Vanderbil ...

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who founded the Gould family, Gould business dynasty. He is generally identified as one of the Robber baron (industrialist), robber bar ...

, Cyrus West Field,

Russell Sage Russell Risley Sage (August 4, 1816 – July 22, 1906) was an American financier, railroad executive and Whig Party (United States), Whig politician from New York (state), New York, who became one of the List of richest Americans in history, rich ...

;

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

), 1885 File:Joseph Ferdinand, Keppler Rapid Transit to Sheol 1888 Cornell CUL PJM 1097 01.jpg, ''Rapid Transit to Sheol—Where We Are All Going According to the Reverend Dr. Morgan Dix'' by Joseph Ferdinand Keppler, 1888 File:Puck112188c.jpg, Nasty little printer's devils, 1888 File:Puck magazine cover 2 May 1894 - In the cyclone cellar, waiting for fair weather.jpg, Cyclone as

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...

for political revolution during U.S. mid-term elections of 1894 File:School Begins (Puck Magazine 1-25-1899).jpg, ''School Begins'' by Louis Dalrymple, January 25, 1899 File:PuckCartoon-TeddyRoosevelt-05-23-1906.jpg, ''The Infant

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

and the

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company was a Trust (business), corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil of Ohio, Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founde ...

Serpents'' by Frank A. Nankivell, depicting U.S. President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...

grabbing the head of Nelson W. Aldrich and the snake-like body of

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the List of richest Americans in history, wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern hist ...

, May 23, 1906 File:Paris in half-mourning by Ralph Burton 1915.jpg, ''"Paris in Half-Mourning"'' by Ralph Barton, 1915 File:Henry Mayer, The Awakening, 1915 Cornell CUL PJM 1176 01 - Restoration.jpg, ''The Awakening'' (depicting the universal suffrage movement) by Henry "Hy" Mayer, 1915 File:John Bull's dilemma - Dalrymple. LCCN2012648689 (cropped).jpg, "

John Bull John Bull is a national personification of England, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country-dwelling, jolly and matter-of-fact man. He originated in satirical works of ...

's dilemma": "It's 'ard to 'ave to disturb 'im–'e's such a good customer!" '' Puck'', 1895

Notes

References

* *

External links

U Virginia collection
color cartoons
''Puck''
at

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...

(black and white)
''Puck'' at ''archive.org'' (black and white, scanned from microfilms)Gallery of 1877 ''Puck'' Magazine caricatures by Joseph Keppler
* ttp://library.gwu.edu/ead/ms2121.xml Guide to the Samuel Halperin ''Puck'' and Judge Cartoon Collection, 1879–1903 Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University {{DEFAULTSORT:Puck (magazine) 1876 establishments in Missouri 1918 disestablishments in New York (state) Defunct magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1876 Magazines disestablished in 1918 Magazines published in New York City Magazines published in St. Louis History of racism in the United States Satirical magazines published in the United States Weekly magazines published in the United States Puck (folklore)