The Modern Moses
- Title:
- The Modern Moses
- Alternate Title:
- The Modern Moses
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Opper, Frederick Burr & Keppler, Joseph
- Date:
- 1881
- Posted Date:
- 2017-04-14
- ID Number:
- 2235.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2235_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1870 - 1899
- Subject:
- Religion
Bias
Politics & Government
Allegorical
Pictorial - Measurement:
- 31 x 47 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- As a "nation of immigrants," Americans have produced persuasive maps addressing the issues of immigration and nationality over most of the country's lifetime. The collection includes a number of these maps published since the 1840s. Some are welcoming, encouraging, and provide advice to immigrants. Some assert that the diversity of our nationalities is a source of strength for the country. And yet others attack immigrants in general, or specific ethnic or religious immigrant groups, particularly Asians, Catholics, and Jews. For the range of these maps, Search > "immigration.”
This image appeared in Puck Magazine eight months after the assassination of Czar Alexander Ii of Russia on March 13, 1881. It shows Uncle Sam as "The Modern Moses," with the staff of "Liberty" in his hand, parting the seas of "Oppression" and "Intolerance" for immigrants fleeing from oppression and violence. The new arrivals are smiling broadly as they arrive in America on their way to new "Western Homes." The cartoon is signed "O & K," for Joseph Keppler, the publisher of Puck, and Frrederick Opper, one of Puck's leading artists.
Each of the figures - including Uncle Sam - was caricatured in accordance with the common stereotype of the day, the men bearded, the women obese, all with large hooked noses, leading to "vigorous criticism." Keppler denied that the cartoon was anti-Semitic, and he "neither apologized for nor changed his stereotype. Jews similarly depicted continued to appear in Puck, but these were no different in kind from equally coarse and offensive caricatures of Irish and Italian immigrants, venal politicians, or avaricious Robber Barons." https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/escape-from-the-pogroms-judaic-treasures, accessed February 17, 2021.
Following the Czar's assassination, "seeking a scapegoat, the government and people [had] turned upon the Jews in pogroms in over a hundred towns and villages, wild excesses of violence, pillage, and plunder." Ibid.The pogroms led in turn to the expulsion of Jews from the cities and villages of Russia and their exclusion from schools and universities, the legal profession and the government. Ibid. The result was a massive wave of emigration of Russian Jews, many of them to America, doubling the Jewish population of the United States in the 1880s alone. Ibid.
It is interesting to compare this cartoon to the similar but blatantly anti-Semitic one appearing eleven years later in Judge Magazine, ID #1111, "Their New Jerusalem."
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Puck Magazine, November 30, 1881.
- Repository:
- Private Collection of PJ Mode
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.