The Carpet-Bag, Vol. II, No. 10

The Carpet-Bag was a Boston weekly devoted to humor, burlesque, light verse, and comic woodcuts. This cover features an ornamental nameplate with decorative scrollwork and a hand holding the title—a visual pun on the traveling bag—flanked by two vignettes of domestic and street scenes. Inside, readers found tall tales, satirical sketches, and comic illustrations alongside literary contributions. Published 1851–1853 and edited by Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber, The Carpet-Bag occupied a distinctive place in American humor journalism, printing early work by Mark Twain and Artemus Ward while maintaining a literary tone that distinguished it from cheaper sensational weeklies. It represented a tradition of urbane, print-based comedy aimed at literate audiences in antebellum New England.