The Wasp — 1881 — page 338: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical illustration depicts a bearded man operating a locomotive marked with a dollar sign, suggesting a critique of wealthy industrialists controlling America's railroad industry. The figure appears caricatured in exaggerated style typical of 19th-century political satire. The train travels through an industrial landscape with factories and smokestacks visible in the background, emphasizing the scale of industrial power. The cartoon likely critiques railroad monopolies and the concentration of wealth in the hands of robber barons during America's Gilded Age. The dollar sign on the locomotive explicitly ties financial greed to railroad expansion and control. The anxious expression and gesturing pose suggest the cartoonist views this concentration of power as problematic or threatening to the public interest, a common theme in *The Wasp's* satirical commentary on late 19th-century American capitalism and industry.