The Carpet-Bag, Vol. II, No. 22

The Carpet-Bag, Vol. II, No. 22 (1852)

The masthead features ornamental scrollwork framing the title, with a hand grasping a carpet bag at top center. Flanking vignettes depict domestic and commercial scenes. The cover presents a grand panoramic engraving of Saint Louis, Missouri—steamboats, factories, and riverfront activity rendered in wood-block detail.

The Carpet-Bag was a Boston-based weekly combining literary humor, tall tales, light verse, and woodcut illustration. Published 1851–1853 under editor Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber, it occupied a distinct niche between genteel periodicals and sensation press, printing burlesque sketches and comic character writing. The paper introduced Mark Twain's first nationally distributed story and featured Artemus Ward, anchoring The Carpet-Bag in the lineage of American literary humor that preceded the modern comic magazine.