Miss Columbia's Public School; Or, Will It Blow Over? (The Nast Series No. 2)
New York: Francis B. Felt & Co., 1871. A satirical work depicting the United States as a public school where the Civil War, Reconstruction, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the controversy over Catholic education, multiculturalism and the influence of Tammany Hall are enacted by school children. These were all subjects lampooned by Nast in his cartoons for Harper's Weekly and some of the 72 illustrations included in this booklet were also printed there. The Irish Catholics receive the bulk of Nast's acerbism with nearly all depicted as simians. Regarding the Irish, in one scene, Dame Britannia, looks at an Irish lout and says, Yes; the very same Boy that has given me so much trouble in my School. Well, Miss Columbia, now you know how it is yourself!" A Cosmopolitan was unmasked as Pullen in the Dictionary of American and English Initials and Pseudonyms (1885).
Original, stapled, illustrated wrappers, 82 pp., heavily illustrated. Some rubbing and faint foxing to wrappers, but a very good copy. Very scarce in the original wrappers as the few copies currently on the market have been rebound in boards. Item #14963
Price: $475.00