Judge — January 7, 1893 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This political cartoon satirizes fears about disease and immigration. The title references a "World's Fair" (likely the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition) and warns of cholera outbreak in Hamburg, Germany. The imagery shows Uncle Sam (identifiable by his star-spangled clothing) recoiling in horror as skeletal Death personified—and an elderly, diseased immigrant figure—approach from a European harbor scene in the background. A barrel labeled "U.S." sits abandoned in the foreground. The cartoon expresses xenophobic anxiety: that European cholera epidemics would be imported to America via emigrant ships. It reflects late-19th-century concerns about disease transmission through immigration, using Death and disease as visual metaphors for the perceived threat posed by foreign arrivals to American public health and safety.