Puck July the Fourth 1903

Louis M. Glackens's cover for *Puck* No. 1374 stages a boisterous Fourth of July celebration. At center, a stout, red-nosed old man in tricorn hat and blue-and-gold coat recoils dramatically as a brass cannon fires, his cane flying loose. A young woman in a lavender dress and broad hat clutches her ears in delighted alarm; a grinning young man in a vest touches the cannon's breech. Behind them, a crowd in period dress spills out past a sign reading *The Gen. Washington Hotel*. The caption banner reads July the Fourth 1903, flanked by firecrackers. The image is a broadly drawn celebration of patriotic nostalgia, typical of *Puck*'s holiday covers that sold American festivity to a middle-class readership at ten cents a copy.