Harper's Weekly - Humours of the Day

The “Humours of the Day” section of Harper’s Weekly contrasts nicely with All the Year Round because one of the humours in Harper’s Weekly critiques Dickensian readers, and short stories by Dickens appears within All the Year Round. This direct shot at Dickensian readers speaks to the elitism of Americans. Though the cartoons are polite in their nature, they are still all titled “Characters at Dickens’s readings” and the drawings themselves are not the most flattering. In addition to the characters from Dickens’s readings there are jokes targeted specifically for American readers, much like the rest of the advertisements in Harper’s Weekly. There is an elitism developing within American society because of the want to separate from their colonial powers, and at this point it was beginning to come through in entertainment and advertisements.