The Third Crossing dramaturgy

"A Philosophic Cock" by James Akin, 1804.

Political attack ads in the era of the founding fathers

In this critical cartoon, Thomas Jefferson as the cock or rooster, courts a hen, portrayed as Sally Hemings. Contemporary political opponents of Jefferson sought to destroy his presidency and his new political party with charges of Jefferson's promiscuous behavior and his ownership of slaves. The cock was also a symbol of revolutionary France, which Jefferson was known to admire and which, his critics believed, Jefferson unduly favored. (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html)