America in Caricature, 1765–1865

The modern definition of caricature is a pictorial representation of a person or thing through the gross exaggeration of its most characteristic features. In times of social and political upheaval the caricaturist boldly, and satirically, portrays the world as they see it, and any text present is secondary to the meaning constructed by the portrait. The caricatures in this collection depict times of turbulence in American history and range in date from the Revolutionary War to the War of 1812 and to the presidential elections of 1860 and 1864 which brought Abraham Lincoln to the White House.

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