First U.S. Editorial Cartoon

"The image is of a curving snake cut into pieces, each of which bears the abbreviated name of one of the 13 original colonies. The title, Join, or Die, and its alternate caption, Unite or Die, is an admonition to join together in order to survive, first, a foreign power on the frontier, but, later, Britain's tyrannical behavior toward her colonies. This image was cut from the May 9, 1754 issue of Franklin's paper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, the newspaper that went up and down the colonial coast, carried by the postal system that had been expanded and improved by Franklin."