About this image...

Image Title: The Great American Tanner, 1868

Creator: Currier & Ives.,

Date: 1868.

Summary: An election-year cartoon invoking both Grant's humble beginnings as a tanner and his successful Civil War military career. Before the war Grant had worked in his family's leather goods establishment in Galena, Illinois, earning the later sobriquet, "the Galena Tanner." Popular New York governor John Thompson Hoffman, dressed as an Indian, the "Great Sachem of Tammany," presents Democratic candidates Horatio Seymour and Francis P. Blair, Jr., to Grant (center). Thompson was a leader of New York Tammany Democrats. He addresses Grant, "Here General is a couple more hides to be tanned when will they be done?" Grant smokes a cigar and wears the leather apron of a tanner, rolled-up sleeves exposing his muscular arms. He replies, "Well I'll finish them off early in November." At right former Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Simon Bolivar Buckner, and John C. Pemberton hold their rumps and hop about in pain. They announce, "This is to Certify, that we have had our hides tanned by U. S. Grant and that the work was by him thoroughly done? [signed by] R. E. Lee, S. P. Buckner, Pemberton and others Late of Confederate Army."

Related Names: Worth, Thomas, 1834-1917|Cameron, John, approximately 1828-

Subjects: Army of the Confederacy
Bruckner, Simon Bolivar
Colfax, Schuyler
Galena, Ill
Grant, Ulysses S., as presidential candidate
Hoffman, John Thompson
Labor and trades, portrayed
Lee, Robert E
New York, State of, state government and politics
Pemberton, John C
Seymour, Horatio, as presidential candidate

Original Media: Lithograph

Collections: Cartoon Prints, American » more info...
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