This image appeared in Puck Magazine eight months after the assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia on March 13, 1881. It shows Uncle Sam as "The Modern Moses," with the staff of "Liberty" in his hand, parting the seas of "Oppression" and "Intolerance" for immigrants fleeing from oppression and violence. The new arrivals are smiling broadly as they arrive in America on their way to new "Western Homes." The cartoon is signed "O & K," for Joseph Keppler, the publisher of Puck, and Frrederick Opper, one of Puck's leading artists.
Each of the figures - including Uncle Sam - was caricatured in accordance with the common stereotype of the day, the men bearded, the women obese, all with large hooked noses, leading to "vigorous criticism." Keppler denied that the cartoon was anti-Semitic, and he "neither apologized for nor changed his stereotype.”
Following the Czar's assassination, "seeking a scapegoat, the government and people [had] turned upon the Jews in pogroms in over a hundred towns and villages, wild excesses of violence, pillage, and plunder." The pogroms led in turn to the expulsion of Jews from the cities and villages of Russia and their exclusion from schools and universities, the legal profession and the government. The result was a massive wave of emigration of Russian Jews, many of them to America, doubling the Jewish population of the United States in the 1880s alone. - Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection Item: 2235.01
“This same historical metaphor was used in 1881 in a two-page cartoon in color in the magazine of humor and satire Puck. Its German edition captions the cartoon "Der Moderne Auszug aus Egypten" (The Modern Exodus from Egypt); in the English language edition it is called "The Modern Moses."
Moses is Uncle Sam, his trousers the red and white stripes of the American flag, beams of light radiating from his white top hat. He stands on a Rock of Salvation and with his wand marked "Liberty" he cleaves the waters of the Atlantic. On the far horizon looms death in military helmet. A setting sun on the near shore emits its rays inscribed "Western Homes." Through the parted waters marked "Oppression" and "Intolerance" marches a long line of immigrants.
Their depiction aroused an angry attack on the Austrian immigrant publisher and artist, Joseph Keppler. He was accused of perpetuating the German and Austrian antiSemitic caricatures of the Jews: top-hatted men, bearded or whiskered, obese women and obstreperous children, all hook-nosed and kinky haired. The cartoon is signed "O & K," for Frederick Burr Opper — son of an Austrian Jewish immigrant and a New England (apparently not Jewish) mother — and Keppler, who neither apologized for nor changed his stereotype. Jews similarly depicted continued to appear in Puck, but these were no different in kind from equally coarse and offensive caricatures of Irish and Italian immigrants, venal politicians, or avaricious Robber Barons" - Jewish Virtual Library ~ From the Land of the Czars: Escape from the Pogroms.
Title: The Modern Moses
Collection: Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection Item: 2235.01
Creator: Opper, Frederick Burr & Keppler, Joseph
Date: 1881
Source: Puck Magazine, November 30, 1881
Measurement: 31 x 47 (centimeters, height x width)