Forensic Research Archive of Manipulation and Exploitation

Collection

Content note: 1900 Puck cartoon with period racial caricatures of a Hawaiian and a Puerto Rican woman. This object is shown as it was published. Why

The Ill-Fated Sister: A Case of Unjust Discrimination (Puck, 25 April 1900)

The Ill-Fated Sister: A Case of Unjust Discrimination (Puck, 25 April 1900)

Chromolithograph by Louis Dalrymple in Puck, 25 April 1900 (v. 47, no. 1207, centerfold). Uncle Sam and a woman labelled 'Hawaii' ride past a woman labelled 'Porto Rico' in a carriage lettered 'Free Trade'; a discarded paper on the road is partly legible as a message to Congress. The cartoon appears to criticise the way Congress treated Puerto Rico's trade compared with Hawaii's by contrasting two women in one frame, and uses period racial caricature in drawing both women. It selects one contrast out of a larger tariff dispute ([[card-stacking]]).

Date
April 25, 1900
Period
Pre-1914
Made by
Puck (Keppler & Schwarzmann, New York), artist Louis Dalrymple
Region
North America
Country
United States
Medium
Cartoon
Issuer type
Media
Regime
Mckinley Administration
Leader
William Mckinley
Audience
Domestic public
Purpose
Persuade or win support
Themes
Elections and party politics, Empire and colonialism, Race and ethnicity
Event
1900 US Election
Techniques
Card stacking
Source
Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source
Library of Congress, retrieved October 2, 2026
Rights
Public domain (published 1900; LOC: no known restrictions)
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Text on the object

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

PUCK
HAWAII [on the hat]
FREE TRADE [on the carriage]
PORTO RICO [on the standing woman's cloak]
[dropped paper, partly legible:] ...MESSAGE TO CONGRESS ... OUR PLAIN DUTY
THE ILL-FATED SISTER;- A CASE OF UNJUST DISCRIMINATION.
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY KEPPLER & SCHWARZMANN.

The wording on the dropped paper is only partly legible; the transcription gives the words that can be read.

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