---
title: '"The Cuban Melodrama" (Puck cover, 3 June 1896)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cuban-melodrama-puck-1896/
description: Uncle Sam, labelled the 'Noble Hero' of a stage melodrama, stands over a kneeling young woman marked 'Cuba' and tells a cloaked 'Heavy Villain' marked
section: Collection
---

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3. "The Cuban Melodrama" (Puck cover, 3 June 1896)

[!["The Cuban Melodrama", 1896 US cartoon: Uncle Sam, labelled the 'Noble Hero' of a stage melodrama, stands over a kneeling](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/cuban-melodrama-puck-1896.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/cuban-melodrama-puck-1896.jpg)

# "The Cuban Melodrama" (Puck cover, 3 June 1896)

Uncle Sam, labelled the 'Noble Hero' of a stage melodrama, stands over a kneeling young woman marked 'Cuba' and tells a cloaked 'Heavy Villain' marked 'Spain' to stand back. The tell: stage roles do the sorting, so the good and bad parties are named before the viewer weighs anything.

Puck ran this cover on 3 June 1896, two years before the U.S. declaration of war on Spain and during the Cleveland administration's stated neutrality. Uncle Sam, labelled the 'Noble Hero' of a stage melodrama, stands over a kneeling young woman marked 'Cuba' and tells a cloaked 'Heavy Villain' marked 'Spain' to stand back. Name-calling and transfer work through the stage labels, which assign the roles before a viewer weighs anything.

## Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon

[Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

## Full record

Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights

[← Máquinas para fabricar yankées (Machines for Manufacturing Yankees)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/maquinas-para-fabricar-yankees-blanco-y-negro-1896/) [Coronation of the autocrat of protection (Puck) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/puck-coronation-autocrat-mckinley-1896/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Behistun (Bisotun) rock relief and trilingual inscription of Darius I: the king, two attendants and the bound rebel leaders beneath the winged figure of Ahuramazda](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/behistun-relief-darius-and-rebels-521bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Shows bound captives before the king, and the inscription records the mutilation and public execution of rebel leaders, as the king's own account.
- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (Electoral Saxony · 1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (Dutch Republic · 1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling, Demonization)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (Great Britain · 1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The North Briton, No. XLV, 23 April 1763 (John Wilkes), opening page](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/north-briton-no-45-wilkes-1763/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Apr 23, 1763 · Name-calling)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Province of Massachusetts Bay · Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Hand-coloured engraving of bloodied dead and wounded colonists after soldiers fired on a crowd.
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (France · 1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)