Animal spirits

Posted on Saturday, July 18, 2009, at 6:42 pm, by Cadwalader Crabtree.

Everyone is familiar with Wall Street’s bulls and bears, but how many of us remember that this iconography used to include a third animal? In the early decades of the last century, cartoonists regularly drew lambs to depict the small investors who were (at best) fleeced, or (at worst) slaughtered, by their larger and fiercer competitors. Presumably this was too unflattering a view of our titans of finance to be allowed to survive.

Below is one of the best of the many cartoons published on this theme. Drawn by Edwin George Lutz (1868-?), it appeared in Life on July 21, 1910. Note the use of stock-ticker tape to suspend the lamb.

Comments (closed):

Karla wrote on July 18, 2009, at 7:01 pm:

That’s unexpected. It’s time to bring back this imagery.