Racial & Ethnic Stereotypes

People from all demographics in society were the subject of satire, ridicule, and critique. This includes minority identities such as Black people, Irish Celts, Jewish people, and other racial and ethnic identities. The illustrations present in this collection showcase beliefs that are disparaging and harmful towards racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups in Cruikshank’s Britain, and serve as an important reminder that minority stereotypes were cultivated in visual arts. 

These visual stereotypes circulated and promoted dehumanizing imagery of minority groups and particularly reflect the medicalization of race, intolerance for non-Christian religions, and a general desire among dominant racial and social groups within British society for control over individuals considered “other.” In the era of Pax Britannica, those who did not look, sound, believe, and live the Anglo-Saxon way were subordinated. As the sketches in this collection make clear, white supremacist ideology was aided by pseudo-scientific movements like phrenology which would later spur the popularization of eugenics near the century’s end. 

Click on the images below to learn more about each sketch

A large family is piled together hanging onto each other with the caption “Philoprogenitiveness.”
A man stabs a knife into a table while two figures look on
A circular image of a man with a barrel for a head and the caption “The Neighbors of an Old Irish Boy.”
A group of dark-skinned men sit on an elephant that is lurching towards a gate.
A Black man points at a white man in a top hat while a group of Black men and women look on.
A man who is drawn as an Asian stereotype sits at a table and laughs with a group of white men.
A Black man peeks behind a tree and looks at a white soldier who is slumped over on a tree and is missing a leg.
Three figures are depicted, one is an ape, one is an exaggerated looking Black man and one is a white man with very small features.
A letter with cursive writing that features a sketch of a Black man with very exaggerated features and a sketch of a white man.