Cartoons as Political Persuasion: How Protectionists Used Visual Media to Shape Trade Policy

In the early 20th century, the American Protective Tariff League (APTL) deployed an unprecedented visual campaign to sway public opinion on trade policy. “It Does Convert the Democrats!” proclaimed Republican campaigners in Bridgeport, Connecticut, describing a collection of protective tariff cartoons as so powerful it could convert free-traders more effectively than a renowned evangelist could convert sinners.

This remarkable confidence in cartoons as tools of political persuasion wasn’t isolated. Between 1894 and 1920, the APTL published over 1,800 cartoons in its weekly newspaper, the American Economist, and facilitated their further circulation in local papers across the country, creating one of the most extensive visual propaganda campaigns in American political history.

Founded in New York City in 1885, the APTL operated as a privately funded organization dedicated to popularizing protectionist ideology. With industrialists from protected industries as its main financiers, the organization functioned as the public voice of elite economic interests. The League was emblematic of the educational campaign style that characterized late 19th century politics—a transitional approach between the partisan spectacles of earlier campaigns and the candidate-centered advertising of the 20th century.

“Argument is never so effective as when presented pictorially,” declared the APTL in 1901, adding that “Protection has been made captivating to the popular mind by the aid of well-conceived and artistically executed drawing.” The organization consistently emphasized that cartoons could simplify complex economic issues in ways appealing to potential voters.

However, these images rarely explained the economic mechanisms of tariff protectionism. Instead, they emotionalized, dramatized, and personalized the tariff issue through metaphors of threat and danger on one hand, and prosperity and abundance on the other. This non-economic framing suggests that historians must broaden their approach to include these wider cultural and ideological elements to fully understand American protectionism’s durability.

Between 1861 and 1934, the United States pursued highly restrictive import tariffs that shielded American manufacturing and heavy industries from foreign competition. By the late 1880s, the tariff had become a partisan issue with Republicans supporting protectionism and Democrats calling for reform. The debate was so fierce and persistent that it became a quintessential political conflict of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

The tariff wasn’t merely an instrument of trade administration. As the primary source of federal revenue into the 20th century, tariff policy was intertwined with discussions about the size and function of the federal government. Most Americans viewed it as the central tool through which Washington could influence the trajectory of economic development—a form of industrial policy before that term existed.

The APTL’s cartoons worked by creating associative connections between the complex tariff issue and relatable themes from everyday life and popular culture. They simplified the debate into a stark choice between protectionism and free trade, leaving little room for compromise or nuance, and adjusting the tariff issue to the polarized political culture of the era.

Technical innovations enabled this visual propaganda campaign. The 1890s saw a transition from lithographic reproduction to photoengraving, drastically shortening printing times and allowing cartoons to become regular features in daily newspapers. The APTL distributed its cartoons through multiple channels—newspaper exchanges with over 5,000 editors nationwide, press associations that supplied local newspapers with ready-made content, and direct mailing of plate copies to local editors.

The League’s cartoons primarily featured Uncle Sam as their protagonist, representing either the American government, the nation in the abstract, or the American people generally. His reflection of the American national character and appearance in familiar everyday scenes made him and the protectionist message attached to him relatable to middle-class Americans.

The antagonist in these cartoons evolved over time. In the 1890s, John Bull, representing Great Britain, played this role, reflecting the Anglophobia that characterized American protectionism. Later, as that sentiment declined, the tariff reformer became the new villain, depicted as a devious saboteur or an elitist intellectual disconnected from the practical concerns of ordinary Americans.

The cartoons presented the tariff issue through emotionally charged imagery rather than economic explanation. Metaphors of defense, including walls, fences, dikes, and fortresses, depicted protectionism as necessary to prevent foreign threats. One 1906 cartoon showed a “Protection Dike” shielding American industries from a sea of “Cheap Labor,” with a “Tariff Reformer” maliciously cutting a crack in the dike.

Animal metaphors reinforced this defensive posture, with American industries depicted as vulnerable rabbits or sleeping infants protected from predatory foreign competition by the watchdog of protectionism. These metaphors reflected protectionists’ self-perception as engaged in a defensive mission against external threats.

On the positive side, protectionism was associated with prosperity through metaphors of growth and abundance. A 1900 cartoon showed Uncle Sam watering flowers labeled “Prosperity,” “Increased Wages,” and “Business Revival” with a “Protection” watering can, suggesting a natural relationship between protectionist policies and economic growth.

The APTL’s cartoons frequently juxtaposed prosperous times under protectionism with economic misery under free trade. The 1893 Panic and Cleveland’s presidency became notorious negative reference points, even though Democrats’ tariff policy didn’t actually cause the economic downturn. A series of 1894 cartoons contrasted bustling 1892 scenes under the protectionist McKinley Tariff with bleak 1894 scenes under Cleveland and the Wilson-Gorman Tariff.

These visual narratives targeted middle-class Americans’ status anxieties and desire for security, stability, and private happiness. An 1897 cartoon contrasted “Free-Trade,” showing Uncle Sam as a homeless beggar, with “Protection,” depicting him contentedly at home in a comfortable armchair.

The APTL cartoons did more than reflect protectionist arguments—they helped create and propagate them through emotionally resonant imagery. By establishing a narrative that linked economic hardship with free trade policies and prosperity with protectionism, the APTL exploited real economic anxieties to push their political agenda.

To understand American protectionism’s longevity, we must look beyond elite industrial interests to the broader cultural and ideological underpinnings that made these arguments resonant with ordinary Americans. The APTL’s cartoons successfully exploited deep-seated moral assumptions, anxieties, hopes, and aspirations of the American public, transforming protectionism from a dry economic policy into an emotionally grounded worldview intertwined with nationalism and fears of foreign influence.

The protectionist visual imagery created by the APTL offers historians a window into how economic policies gained popular support not through rational explanation, but through emotional appeal and cultural resonance—a lesson that remains relevant in understanding economic politics today.