Puck — December 18, 1878 — page 17: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This Puck supplement satirizes **Gail Hamilton**, a 19th-century American writer and social commentator. The cartoon depicts her in masculine dress (wearing trousers and a crown-like headdress), wielding a pen and ink bottle labeled "Tribune Ink." The accompanying verse mocks her literary talent and her unconventional gender presentation. The poem suggests she skillfully "backs up Blaine" (likely James G. Blaine, a political figure) and "this little dame from Beverly" succeeds at political writing, but "cannot, somehow, get around our Schurz"—apparently unable to out-argue another commentator. The satire ridicules Hamilton for both her intellectual ambitions and her adoption of masculine appearance/authority, treating these as inherently laughable transgressions against Victorian gender norms.