This sort of objectification is going on to this very day.  The caption reads, "My horse started from an object upon the ground."  From Pelham by Baron Lytton, 1883.

Here's a precursor to Cat People.  From "Turning Into Cats" by Frances Lee, St. Nicholas magazine, 1877.  The caption reads, "The minister and his son."

We can't make out many of the words on this diagram from Forecasting Business Conditions (1922), pictured left, but note that it seems descended from the Sami shaman drums of Lapland (right), and may more business diagrams be so inspired.

"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."  From The Life and Literary Works of Michel Angelo Buonarroti by Richard Duppa, 1806.

Here's a precursor to Bewitched: The Witch-Wife by Sarah Tytler, 1897.

Here's a precursor to VeggieTales, from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1904.

Here's a precursor to the "Superflat" portmodern art movement founded by Takashi Murakami, from Mémoires Historiques sur la Louisiane, 1753.

Here's a precursor to David Copperfield's talking necktie illusion, from The Last of the Nine, 1890.  The caption reads, "'Don't touch that woman!' said a voice, 'It is the command of the black tie!'"

Here's a precursor to Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.  It's The Man in the Check Suit by T. W. H. Delf, 1897.

This sounds like another precursor to the "Fusilli Jerry" episode of Seinfeld.  (We noted the "Macaroni Man" precursor here.)  It's The Fantoccini Man by Warren Townshend, 1890.

Here's a precursor to Tom and Jerry, from St. Nicholas magazine, 1898.

Here's precusor to Lark Rise to Candleford, from St. Nicholas magazine, 1898.