''Punchinello'' was a short-lived American

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

. Inspired by the English publication ''

Punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pun ...

'', it ran in weekly editions from 2 April 1870 to 24 December 1870.

History

The magazine was founded by former editors of '' Vanity Fair'', which went out of business in 1863. They found four investors willing to provide $5000 each—though they did not disclose that those four were robber baron Jay Gould, financial buccaneer Jim Fisk, and corrupt politicians

Boss Tweed William Magear Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878), often erroneously referred to as William "Marcy" Tweed (see below), and widely known as "Boss" Tweed, was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany ...

and

Peter B. Sweeny Peter Barr Sweeny (October 9, 1825 New York City – August 30, 1911 Mahopac, Putnam County, New York) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. Life He was the son of James Sweeny, who kept a hotel in Hoboken, New Jersey, and Mary ( ...

. It ceased publication within a year. The magazine's main illustrator was Henry Louis Stephens, who produced a full-page cartoon every week. Other sections included theater reviews, correspondence (real or fictional) from Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago, and essays on foreign affairs. According to historian of periodicals Frank Luther Mott, "in format as in name, it was an imitator of the London ''Punch''." However Mott stipulated that, unlike its antecedent, "''Punchinello'' was not very funny."

References

External links

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Cornell University Library The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. As of 2014, it holds over 8 million printed volumes and over a million ebooks. More than 90 percent of its current 120,000 Periodical literature, periodical titles are ...

Satirical magazines published in the United States Weekly magazines published in the United States Defunct political magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1870 Magazines disestablished in 1870 {{US-poli-mag-stub