---
title: '''The People''s Line -- Take care of the Locomotive'', Whig woodcut, 1840'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/peoples-line-take-care-of-the-locomotive-1840/
description: 'Hand-coloured woodcut: Van Buren''s ''Uncle Sam''s Cab'' overturns on a heap labelled ''CLAY'' in the path of a locomotive made of a hard-cider barrel, a log…'
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[!['The People's Line -- Take care of the Locomotive', Whig woodcut, 1840](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/peoples-line-take-care-of-the-locomotive-1840.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/peoples-line-take-care-of-the-locomotive-1840.jpg)

# 'The People's Line -- Take care of the Locomotive', Whig woodcut, 1840

Hand-coloured woodcut: Van Buren's 'Uncle Sam's Cab' overturns on a heap labelled 'CLAY' in the path of a locomotive made of a hard-cider barrel, a log cabin and Harrison's head. The tell is the oncoming engine titled 'The People's Line', presenting Harrison's momentum as the public's own.

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
UNCLE SAM'S CAB
CLAY
HARD CIDER
The People's Line--Take care of the Locomotive
Sold at 104 Nassau, and 18 Division Streets, New-York.
```

Read from the 6004 x 4739 px LOC master. The figure in the cab is identified as Van Buren by the LOC description, not by a printed name.

[← Martin Van Buren portrait print with Jackson 'Veto U.S. Bank' and 'Ten Hours' columns, 1840](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/martin-van-buren-independent-treasury-portrait-1840/) ['The Fox Chace', Whig cartoon of Van Buren hunted by cider-barrel hounds, 1840 →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/the-fox-chace-van-buren-harrison-childs-1840/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Consult of the doctors on the grave illness of the Grand Sultan (Consult vande medicijnen inde swaere siekte vanden grooten Sultaen)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/consult-of-the-doctors-sick-sultan-antwerp-1683/) (Spanish Netherlands · 1683 · Transfer, Bandwagon)
- ["Jackson ticket" with Hickory tree motto, Baltimore (1828)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jackson-ticket-hickory-tree-1828/) (United States · 1828 · Bandwagon, Transfer)
- [Democratic tickets, "Go it, ye Cripples!" and "Stop Van!!!" (Ohio electors, Van Buren and Johnson), 1836](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/democratic-ticket-stop-van-van-buren-1836/) (United States · 1836 · Name-calling, Bandwagon)
- [Democratic ticket, "Going the whole hog" (Ohio electors for Van Buren and Johnson), 1836](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/democratic-ticket-whole-hog-van-buren-1836/) (United States · 1836 · Bandwagon)
- ["Political race course - Union Track - fall races 1836"](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/political-race-course-union-track-harrison-1836/) (United States · 1836 · Bandwagon, Name-calling). Content note: Partisan caricature of named politicians that uses the epithet 'Black Dan' for Daniel Webster and regional stereotypes in the speech balloons.
- ["Grand match between the Kinderhook poney and the Ohio ploughman", April 1836](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/grand-match-kinderhook-poney-ohio-ploughman-harrison-1836/) (United States · Apr 1836 · Transfer, Bandwagon)
- ['The Fox Chace', Whig cartoon of Van Buren hunted by cider-barrel hounds, 1840](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/the-fox-chace-van-buren-harrison-childs-1840/) (United States · 1840 · Name-calling, Bandwagon)
- [Polk in His Extremity (pro-Clay cartoon), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/polk-in-his-extremity-clay-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Bandwagon, Name-calling)