Vanity Fair, Vol. 6, No. 155

Wood-engraved cover from the American Vanity Fair, a New York weekly devoted to political satire during the Civil War. The central caricature depicts Horatio Seymour, newly elected Governor of New York, rendered in the characteristic style of 19th-century satirical portraiture—a figure with exaggerated facial features and slightly built frame, standing at a rail. The title treatment spells "VANITY FAIR" in ornate, playful typography populated with skating figures, referencing the publication's lighter material on manners and society alongside its political commentary. This lithographed periodical targeted Union-side audiences with comic verse, caricature, and editorial illustration, serving as a precursor to modern American comic journalism.