The Carpet-Bag, Vol. II, No. 7

The Carpet-Bag's ornamental masthead features a carpetbag held aloft by a gloved hand, flanked by vignettes of domestic and street scenes. This Boston weekly (1851–1853) published humorous sketches, burlesque, tall tales, and light verse alongside woodcut illustrations. Edited by Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber, The Carpet-Bag provided a venue for American comic writing in the mid-nineteenth century, printing early work by Mark Twain and Artemus Ward. The journal inherited the tradition of American humor periodicals while establishing itself as a literary miscellany that valued both verbal wit and visual comedy—a precursor to later comic magazines.