RRCHNM Logo
This is an archived copy of History Matters, provided by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. To explore this content in a new interface, visit Who Built America?.
home | many pasts | evidence | www.history | blackboard | reference
talking history | syllabi | students | teachers | puzzle | about us

Illustrating News

In the 19th century, drawings were the public’s only visual representations of news events, since the technology to print photographs in newspapers was not yet available. Newspapers and magazine illustrations thus possessed great power to shape public opinion. This puzzle asks you to decide—without the assistance of captions or accompanying articles—what event is being depicted in three examples of such news illustrations.

Match the image to the event it is portraying.

Engraving of a group of armed men in mixed civilian and military dress, carrying rifles and bayonets, marching together in a loose formation.
  1. The observance of St. Patrick’s Day in the Five Points neighborhood of New York City.
  2. Scenes of responses to passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law in New York City.
  3. The New York City draft riot of 1863.
  4. The Astor Place riot of 1849.

  1. The observance of St. Patrick’s Day in the Five Points neighborhood of New York City.
  2. Scenes of responses to passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law in New York City.
  3. The New York City draft riot of 1863.
  4. The Astor Place riot of 1849.
Engraving of a crowd destroying a shop's painted window panels with sticks and clubs amid a chaotic street scene.

A crowded city street scene in a historical engraving, with people gathered along a fence and climbing trees to watch a procession near a small cannon.
  1. The observance of St. Patrick’s Day in the Five Points neighborhood of New York City.
  2. Scenes of responses to passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law in New York City.
  3. The New York City draft riot of 1863.
  4. The Astor Place riot of 1849.

Solution to this Puzzle

Return to Puzzle Archive