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[Anti-trust cartoons]: Nursery Rhymes for Infant Industries, No. 15: 'O' is the Oil Trust, a modern Bill Sikes; he defies the police, and does just as he likes – Antique Print

[Anti-trust cartoons]: Nursery Rhymes for Infant Industries, No. 15: 'O' is the Oil Trust, a modern Bill Sikes; he defies the police, and does just as he likes, c1901. — historic print
[Anti-trust cartoons]: Nursery Rhymes for Infant Industries, No. 15: 'O' is the Oil Trust, a modern Bill Sikes; he defies the police, and does just as he likes, c1901.. Historic print from the Historic Print Archive collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

Step back in time with [Anti-trust cartoons]: Nursery Rhymes for Infant Industries, No. 15: 'O' is the Oil Trust, a modern Bill Sikes; he defies the police, and does just as he likes, a historic print rich in period detail. An authentic image from the Library of Congress, it carries the weight of the real historical record.

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[Anti-trust cartoons]: Nursery Rhymes for Infant Industries, No. 15: 'O' is the Oil Trust, a modern Bill Sikes; he defies the police, and does just as he likes

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Its nursery-rhyme format sets this cartoon apart: the "O" stands for the Oil Trust, cast as Bill Sikes, the brutal thief from Dickens's *Oliver Twist*, who defies the police and does as he likes. Frederick Opper, a leading newspaper caricaturist, drew the series for a Hearst publication around 1901, when the public was uneasy about large industrial combinations. Standard Oil, built up under John D. Rockefeller, was the most prominent target of such attacks, and the record's subject tracings name him. The piece shows how turn-of-the-century cartoonists borrowed familiar literary villains to make monopoly look lawless.

Created / publishedc1901.
Medium1 print.
NotesNewspaper repro. of drawings by Frederick Opper. Copyrighted by W.R. Hearst. This record contains unverified, old data from caption card. Caption card tracings: Nursery rhymes; Oil industry; Trusts; BI; Cartoons, U.S.; Artists, Publ. I.; Sage; Gould; Havemeyer; Rockefeller; Shelf.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,054 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-137972

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