The Wasp — 1893 — page 451: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical cartoon depicts Miss Kalsie Miner, described in the caption as someone who "once a time, George Washington Teeth, when I might had married a common barber, but since I seen de photographs of Queen Liliuokalani was published, I dont tink ob anything lower dan a just class lowsorial artist wid a shop ob his own." The satire mocks an African American woman's social aspirations—specifically her dismissal of a barber in favor of someone with higher status, inspired by seeing photographs of Hawaii's Queen Liliuokalani. The cartoon uses exaggerated dialect and caricature to ridicule her pretensions to refined status, reflecting the racist humor typical of late-19th-century American satirical publications. The composition emphasizes the absurdity of her claimed aspirations.