It is important to recognize the negative correlations of fatness within the IWW’s portrayal of big business. These types of associations, while common from the period, are offensive and are often tied to conceptions of white supremacy, as Amy Farrell explains in Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture. Political cartoons have, and continue to promote unhealthy weight and body standards which negatively affect the emotional and physical well being of people outside those parameters (Rodier, 2022).  All of the people portrayed as protagonists are shown as extremely muscular, with toned chests and bulging biceps. 

 

Visual associations between thin or muscular body types and morally righteous behavior are harmful and not representative of the working person. The very communities that the IWW sought to empower. Rachel Schrieber explains the duality between the worker and the boss in the Socialist magazine Masses: “The juxtaposition of the physically able worker and the effete boss may be found in the mainstream press as well, but the Masses versions of the workers were more emphatic, militant, and favorable toward organized labor” (Schrieber, 2009). These tropes were common throughout political media at the time, and continue to be prevalent in imagery across the political spectrum. 

 

As you look and reflect on the variety of political cartoons, it is important to consider the manner that both the IWW and the managerial class are represented. Although the IWW was not unique to its period in its portrayal of fatness, applying a critical lens to the depictions of union bosses and workers alike can promote more equitable imagery that does not demonize marginalized populations.