“Vote early and often!”

Dr. Suess isn’t known as a political cartoonist, yet he created hundreds of posters and cartoons reflecting his opposition to fascism and isolationism as well as his support of President Roosevelt during World War II. 

He wasn’t a New Yorker, but one political cartoon from 1941 poked fun at the corrupt Tammany political machine that controlled New York City politcs from the late 1800s to the 1930s and 1940s.

That Tammany cat looks kinda familiar, no? Picture him with a tall top hat.

The Tammany Society (reportedly named after Tamenend, a Lenape Indian leader) built the first Tammany Hall on 14th Street, then relocated to a new structure on 17th Street and Union Square East.

The new Tammany Hall didn’t get much use though; by the 1930s, with the election of reform-minded Mayor LaGuardia, among other factors, Tammany’s influence weakened. In 1984, the second Tammany Hall building became an off-Broadway theater still standing today. 

Here it is in the 1920s:

Tags: Dr. Suess, politcal cartoons, Tammany Hall, Tammany Machine