Historical Political Cartoon

by Lucas D., Athena’s student

Lucas is taking Story of the World 4 with Dr. Kirsten and would like to share this amazing creation!

Click on the photo to see the detail & read about the project below.

Thank you, Lucas!

For centuries, political cartoons have been making people laugh while quietly implementing a political view to your mindset.

I designed a political cartoon from the perspective of someone living before the year 1899, to show how America was slowly pushing more and more of their trading and goods into China, to try and get them involved in world commerce.

Back then, it was “trendy” to use large stone rocks to represent barriers between countries. To show how the Chinese barrier was slowly being violated without them really noticing, I put Uncle Sam attempting to act natural while grinning surreptitiously and slowly rolling back the border rock. I represented China with an exaggerated Eastern Dragon, stroking its long whiskers and saying it could have sworn the border rock was further away a few minutes ago.

All of this is heavily exaggerated because that was how these political cartoons were made (and still are). Athena’s dragon course was helpful with designing the Eastern dragon, and knowing what to and what not to emphasize.