C.P Hunting as an Octopus (1896) by Jimmy Swinnerton was published in the San Francisco Examiner, December 14th 1896¹. The cartoon show an octopoid with trunk like limbs as a head of a bearded man, with C.P. Hunting (Collis Potter) written across its forehead. Huntington was a railway magnate and one of the “big four”².

Each of its limbs holds either a person: “farmer”, “merchant”, “orange raiser”, “manufacturer” or an object: a piece of paper saying “honest vote” and a building with “San Francisco” flag. It has a small wound on one limb with “Johnson Defeat” written next to it.

Image Source: California State Library,http://bancroft.library.ca.gov/diglib/imagedata.cfm?id=1408 Accessed: 22nd May 2009.

1. California State Library,http://bancroft.library.ca.gov/diglib/imagedata.cfm?id=1408 Accessed: 22nd May 2009 [↩]
2. Wikipedia (2009), “Collis Potter Huntington”,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collis_Potter_Huntington, Accessed: 22nd May 2009 [↩]

Corporate Greed (1882)

Cartoon published 27th June 1882 shows a large bulbous octopus sitting on top of a pile of crates and bales. The caption apparently reads: “Corporate greed octopus gobbles up freight for Great Railroad while unemployed handlers look on”¹. Octopus head reads: “Corporate Greed. All for ourselves, nothing for the public”. The tentacles have the names of railway companies on them.

Unfortunately image quality is too low to make out the artists signature or the name on the building behind the octopus.

Footnotes

1. Corbis http://tinyurl.com/cl8voh (Accessed 4th April 2009)