Infant Liberty Nursed by Mother Mob (1807)
A woman, seated next to a keg "Public nuisance", nurses an infant at her breasts labeled "Whiskey" and "Rum"
When to our joy, on yester morn, a full pound twelve-pounder – LIBERTY was born… Whilst mother MOB, that steady wet-nurse, press’d the sturdy infant to her milky breast. – Richard Alsop, ‘Infant Liberty Nursed by Mother Mob’, The Echo, with other Poems, N.Y., (1807), pp. 7-8.
A large woman, seated next to a keg "Public nuisance", nurses an infant at her breasts labeled "Whiskey" and "Rum", two winged imps are nearby, one at a bassinet, the other, wearing a Liberty cap, holds a diaper "Mortals avaunt!! 11,500" before a fire to dry, in the background a crowd attempts to tear down "the Pinnacle of Liberty."
A rare and highly unusual example of American political satire from the first decade of the nineteenth-century. The print was engraved by William Satchwell Leney (1769 – 1831), an Englishman who had emigrated to America in 1805, after a drawing by the American artist-engraver Elkanah Tisdale (1768-1835). It was published in New York in 1807 More
Creator(s): Leney, William Satchwell, 1769-1831, engraver
Related Names: Tisdale, Elkanah, 1768-1835 , artist
Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-78126