Caitlin Leahy
CAS 100C- Paper 2
4/23/08
Puck Magazine and its Stereotypical Representations of the Irish
Imagine moving to a new country where you hoped to find religious freedom, a better life for yourself and your family, and the promise of tolerance. Yet, instead of these hopes and dreams, you are treated like an animal, segregated and denounced as uncivilized. It would be quite disappointing to watch all your dreams get washed away. For many new immigrants to America, this situation was seen over and over again, especially in the case of the Irish. Irish immigrants flocked to America in mass numbers during the nineteenth century, especially during the Potato Famine of 1845. Many “native” Americans worried about losing their jobs to the Irish who would do menial labor for cheaper pay. Thus, many types of anti-Irish propaganda began to circulate around the country. One of the most popular anti-Irish publications was Puck magazine, which was founded by Joseph Keppler in 1871. The magazine catered to Protestant German-Americans and victimized the Irish Catholic immigrants. By playing into popular Irish stereotypes, the magazine helped to portray the Irish in a negative light. By examining a prime example of a Puck cartoon, one can see how the Irish were negatively stereotyped by the “native” American people and portrayed as a barbaric, drunken, and violent people.
By looking first at the constructions of ethnicity in the cartoon, one can immediately see the stereotypes that Puck magazine strove to enforce. One such cartoon entitled, “The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things”, by Thomas Nast, depicts an Irishman having consumed too much alcohol, lighting a powder keg, and swinging a bottle around. This plays into the stereotype that all people of Irish descent are drunk and violent. It is also clearly anti-Catholic as the writing in the background says, “Killing of Orangemen” which is the name for the Protestant factions in Northern Ireland. The image is portraying the Irish as overly emotional; they just fly off the handle. The powder keg makes the Irish seem explosive, as if they are not only unable to control their temper (especially when they are drunk) but are also unstable, like dynamite. The background text also uses words like “avenge”, “kill”, and “massacre” to reinforce the negative stereotypes of the Irish. Not only does the image and the text make the Irish seem violent, it also in a way presents them as bestial and uncivilized. Even the cartoon of the man looks animalistic, almost ape-like. Clearly, this image, among many other anti-Irish propaganda espoused by publications like Puck magazine, paints the Irish in a negative light and serves to reinforce negative stereotypes about this ethno-cultural group.
Since Nast’s cartoon clearly presents the Irish as Other, it becomes essential to know the audience to whom he is speaking and what effect this publication would have on them. Puck magazine was printed in both English and German, and, therefore, its primary audience was “native” German-Americans. This paradox serves to reinforce the ridiculous nature of the Nativist movement in America, as German-Americans clearly are not native. Aside from their faulty logic, Puck was attempting to speak out against political systems like Tammany Hall, which they viewed as corrupt, by satirizing popular political and social problems. The magazine played an important role as a non-partisan crusader for a better government and the triumph of American constitutional ideals. However, these so-called ideals included persecuting the Irish Catholics. Puck condemned the “nefarious political agenda of the Catholic church”, and therefore, Tammany Hall. It viewed this political machine as committed to spoils and patronage as the means of dominating the body politic, and was considered all the more dangerous because, beginning in the 1870s, Irish Catholics dominated it (Thomas, 2004). The magazine consistently supported the status quo in regards to the discrimination of the Irish, and the primarily Protestant “native” Americans would have fed into this racist satire about the Irish culture group.
The final piece of the text one must look at is exactly how the rhetoric served to reinforce these stereotypes and the effect they have on Puck’s readers. The text uses cartoons and caricatures to make light of the situation and to make the text seem less racist. Puck’s strongest weapon was that of wit. They used satire in order to deliver their message in a seemingly harmless way. When using satire, human vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, and other methods (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2004). The ideal intent is to bring about social improvement.Although satire is usually meant to be funny, it is not so much humor for its own sake as an attack on something about which the author strongly disapproves, using humor and wit. This humorous portrayal hides the insidious nature of the attack and makes the magazine’s message of discrimination all the more dangerous. By bombarding their readers with images of drunken, violent, uncouth Irish people, society plays into these stereotypes and begins to believe them. There is also an element of fear used to persuade readers. By showing animalistic, bestial imagery of a cultural group, the audience begins to fear this group, which fuels anger and hatred toward them. This anger and hatred drove many “native” Americans to form the Know Nothing Movement in the 1850s. This movement was empowered by popular fears (that Puck magazine helped inspire and played into) that the country was being overwhelmed by Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to American values and controlled by the Pope in Rome (Anbinder, 1992). In the end, this movement and the fear and hatred toward Irish immigrants was Puck’s ultimate goal, as it would lead to the collapse of places like Tammany Hall and would (in theory) drive the Irish back to their native land, leaving America for the “natives”.
In conclusion, “native” American magazines like Puck catered to a largely Protestant, German-American audience who despised and feared the Irish immigrants. This fear led to satirical and stereotypical representations of the Irish people. By examining popular cartoons, like the one by Thomas Nast, it is easy to see the negative light in which the Irish were painted. Portrayed as drunk, violent, bestial and anti-American, Irish immigrants faced discrimination and hardships at every turn. By forming movements like the Know Nothing party, “native” Americans let the Irish know they were unwelcome in America. By constantly struggling in the land of the free, the Irish people managed to become a part of American society and culture and are no longer viewed in the negative stereotypical ways they once were.
References:
Anbinder, Tyler. Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the politics of the 1850s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Elliot, Robert C. “Satire”. Encyclopedia Britannica. 2004
Nast, Thomas. “The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things”. Harper’s Weekly. 1871.
Thomas, Samuel J. “Mugwump Cartoonists, the Papacy, and Tammany Hall in America's Gilded Age”. Religion and American Culture . Summer 2004, Vol. 14, No. 2: 213-250.
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