The slow development of the railroads in Oklahoma was caused by the peculiar circumstances and the Indian Territories in the state. In 1870 the US had 52 thousand miles of railroads but none of them was in Oklahoma. It was only after the Civil War that the US Government signed a series of treaties with the Indian Nations and the east-west railroad was able to be built by the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company.
The cartoon's shadows suggest that some people living in the United States — especially the wealthy — perhaps had forgotten where they came from and that their families were once immigrants just like the new arrival in the cartoon.
