Stereotypes Of Political Cartoon During The Civil War

Introduction:

“If political cartoonists continue to rely on newspapers, we may be in serious trouble. It 's a very transferable form of journalism, though - it works great on Web sites” (Horsey 2009).For many years, political cartoons were used to depict and convey big issues or ideas into small pictures that the reader would understand. It helped people that were not educated to also be aware of the situation. But, these political cartoons only showed one side of a controversy and this created turmoil among the audience. According to David and Williams in Political Cartoon, ' ' The American Presidency,the original political cartoon started in 16th century when Britain released its first caricature. Cartoonists used caricatures, symbols, stereotypes, analogies, juxtaposition, irony and labels to communicate the message to the audience. Political cartoons held an important place especially during the civil war since the main way of communication was through newspapers. Cartoonists had a critical task of reporting the situation of the country through various forms of designs. They held the power to change the perspective of the audience. Because of this, cartoonists did not always display the honest truth. Political cartoons

Similarly, the North’s paper during the civil war contained many cartoons about the South’s system of slavery. One of the cartoons is “Doctor Lincoln’s New Elixir of Life”. In this cartoon, President Abraham Lincoln is portrayed as a medical doctor holding a bowl with the word, ‘emacinpation’ engraved on it. On the right, there is an african american man with the word, ‘slavery’, embedded in his forehead. The way the african american is positioned in the bed shows that he is the patient and that Lincoln is the doctor. It can be inferred that slavery is a disease and emancipation is the medicine for this