A Puck cartoon shows a multiracial line of American labourers building a wall from blocks labelled prejudice, fear, and laws against race; across the water, Chinese workers dismantle another wall for an arriving American ship.

29 March 1882 · Chromolithograph

The anti-Chinese wall—the American wall goes up as the Chinese original goes down

Friedrich Graetz

Why it matters

Graetz exposed a contradiction at the centre of “opening China.” An American ship enters the market supposedly created by dismantling China’s wall while Congress and immigrant labourers assemble a racial barrier against Chinese people. Commercial openness and human exclusion appear as two sides of the same order.

Publication
Puck, volume 11, number 264
Holding institution
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Shelfmark
Illus. in AP101.P7 v. 11 Case X [P&P]; LC-USZC4-4138
Rights
No known restrictions on publication

Graetz, Friedrich. The anti-Chinese wall—the American wall goes up as the Chinese original goes down, 1882. Chromolithograph in Puck 11, no. 264, 29 March 1882. Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-4138.