If MAD magazine had existed in 1870...

...its cartoons might have looked like the ones in Ballou's Monthly Magazine:

Ten more 1870 cartoons at at Lee's Comic Rack.



 Lee

A new scientific toy without precedent--1887's Polygraph

From The Youth's Companion, October 6, 1887.  We can assume the ad did not lie.

From the same magazine, a highly creative, modern-looking ad.  Well, except for the clothes....

Even the cures-everything tone of the ad text has a modern ring.

Lee

At Lee's Comic Rack: Primitive 1905 American Boy cartoons

Bart Simpson was hardly the first little-boy prankster hero of cartoons--check out "Dickey Dont" at my comic blog.

Also, "A Furtive Look Back at the Seebackroscope," and a number of late 19th century magazine "montages" (forerunners of comic book layouts).  Lee sez, check it out.

Link: Lee's Comic Rack.

Montage from the May 12, 1887 Youth's Companion (above).


Lee