The Wasp — 1877 — page 13: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

**Top Panel:** "The Latest Style & Improvements on Dresses" satirizes women's fashion. Four female figures display exaggerated dress silhouettes labeled "The Street Bum," "The Nurse," and "The Rudder"—mocking contemporary Victorian dress trends as absurd and unflattering. **Bottom Panel:** "Darwin's Theory Illustrated—The Creation of Chinaman & Pig" presents a racist evolutionary sequence. It depicts a progression from ape-like figures (1-7) toward human forms, then ending with a pig (8), likely suggesting Chinese immigrants were subhuman or equivalent to animals. This reflects 19th-century anti-Chinese sentiment and pseudo-scientific racism prevalent during the exclusion era. The cartoon weaponizes Darwinian theory to justify xenophobia.