The 1880s sit at a hinge point in print history. Chromolithography had matured enough to make color printing commercially viable, and publishers, advertisers, and mapmakers all rushed to use it. Political illustration flourished in satirical weeklies like Puck, whose cartoonists shaped public opinion with a sharpness that photographs couldn't yet match. The range of what got printed in this decade, from atlas maps to trade labels to guild posters, reflects a moment when the printed image was doing more cultural work than ever before.