First Political Cartoon Printed

On May 9, 1754, "Join, or Die," considered to be the first American political cartoon, was printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette. The impetus for the cartoon, which is thought to have been devised by Benjamin Franklin, was concern about increasing French pressure along the western frontier of the colonies.

To find out more information about how the colonies eventually united with the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, see the online exhibition, Declaring Independence, Drafting the Documents. Or, search in other American Memory collections for more information:

Join, or Die is a famous political cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin and first published in his Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. The original publication by the Gazette is the earliest known pictorial representation of colonial union produced by a British colonist in America. It is a woodcut showing a snake severed into eighths, with each segment labeled with the initial of a British American colony or region. However, New England was represented as one colony, rather than the four colonies it was at that time. In addition, Delaware and Georgia were omitted completely. Thus, it has 8 segments of snake rather than the traditional 13. The cartoon appeared along with Franklin's editorial about the "disunited state" of the colonies, and helped make his point about the importance of colonial unity. During that era, there was a superstition that a snake which had been cut into pieces would come back to life if the pieces were put together before sunset.