Barbara Crews
From GEM: Ben Franklin Cartoon Featured in John Adams Mini-Series
For viewers of HBO's lavish, compelling, and historically rich mini-series John Adams, the image of the famous "Join, or Die" cartoon is front and center, in both visual and intellectual terms. Illustrated by Benjamin Franklin and first published in the May 9, 1754 Pennsylvania Gazette, perhaps the only known copy in private hands is on display at Geppi's Entertainment Museum (GEM) in Baltimore's storied Camden Yards complex.
The segmented snake depicted in the illustration represented the colonies and regions of the British lands in the New World. Its call for unity would be issued again and again, for different causes.
While its image is featured prominently in the opening credits of the six-part television drama, the thought behind the illustration permeated pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary-era America. Drafted as a call for unity among the British colonies in advance of the French and Indian War, it was the first American political cartoon of lasting impact and later took on new meaning leading up to the American Revolution.
It has been reprinted widely since that period and adapted for different causes, including use by both the Union and the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War.
The May 9, 1754 Pennsylvania Gazette is on display in the "Pioneer Spirit" room at GEM, the first part of the museum's walk-through timeline of American history. Alongside it are other newspapers and an amazing selection of toys from the 1776-1894 era, setting the stage for the facility's other rooms.