Sweeping Back the Flood

The major attacks on the preservationists during the Hetch Hetchy debate came as you might expect from San Francisco newspapers in the form of editorials and political cartoons like the one below.


To Start You Thinking

1) Print a copy of the Cartoon Analysis Guide from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection. Describe the persuasive technique(s) used by the artist who created this cartoon for the San Francisco Call.

2) What is implied by the behavior and the attire of the John Muir character?

3) What does the cartoonist suggest about the eventual outcome of the Hetch Hetchy Project?

Notes

cartoon from San Francisco Call, 1909 in the collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Last modified in June, 2019 by Rick Thomas