Show first political cartoon the first political cartoon in this country was designed by benjamin franklin and appeared in his penns pennsylvania vania gazette in 1754 it depicts a snake cut in eight parts representing the eight colonies and is captioned join or die in an attempt to unite the people during the french and indian war for over 20 years whenever an occasion aro arose se to consolidate the colonies this crude drawing was reprinted thus probably exerting influence over a longer period of time than any other political cartoon ever drawn |