This cartoon was printed as a rebuttal to Domestic Manners of the Americans, a "querulous and one-sided" book written by Mrs. Trollope after living in Cincinnate, a backwoods settlement. "Her irritation at the crudeness of all things American is admirably countered by the suave and accomplished line and balanced composition of the print; and in the subject matter of the design is ridicule of the cultural and artistic pretentions of the Trollopes in a milieu utterly unsuited to anything but the bare struggle for existence." (Murrell, A history of American graphic humor v.1, p. 116-117)
