Details
Contributor Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann, printer.
Title "Bixby's Royal Polish." [graphic] : The perfection of blacking for ladies' and children's shoes.
Publisher New York : Mayer Merkel & Ottmann, Lith. 23 & 25 Warren St
Date [ca. 1885]
Physical Description 1 print : chromolithograph ; sheet 8 x 13 cm (3.25 x 5 in.)
Description Trade card promoting S.M. Bixby & Co. and depicting a racist caricature of a Chinese woman kneeling before Columbia holding up a woman's shoe. In the center, shows Columbia, depicted as a white woman attired in a blue Phrygian cap, white dress with a blue drape, and sandals, placing her left hand on an American flag crested shield. She holds aloft a black, woman's boot in her right hand, which emanates light. At her feet, a Chinese woman, wearing her hair up with decorative sticks and attired in a red dress decorated with a blue dragon, a white shawl, and red shoes, kneels on the ground with her right hand up as she looks up at the shoe and Columbia. The western-style woman's shoe is displayed as superior to and a critique of Chinese footbinding. In the right, a group of six women look on, many attired in crowns and crests, likely meant to represent European countries. In the left background is an oversized black bottle labeled, "Bixby's Royal Polish." Samuel M. Bixby began manufacturing and selling shoe blacking in 1860 and founded S.M. Bixby & Co. in 1862. F.F. Dailey Corporation acquired the firm in 1920.
Notes Title from item.
Date inferred from dates of operation of business advertised and active dates of the lithographers.
Advertising text printed on verso: A new compound, producing a durable polish, elastic, waterproof and harmless to all kinds of leather, one coat of which is equal to two of any other. Bixby’s new bottle and combination stopper for sponge blacking is the most perfect package ever invented for forms of liquid blacking or shoe dressing. The wood top is of such size and shape as to form a convenient and firm handle; and the cork is inserted into the wood top, and fastened by the wire and glue, so that it is very much stronger than the old style. The bottle has a broad base and will not upset easily; the mouth has a wide projecting flange, and an air chamber below to prevent the overflow of the liquid in taking out and putting in the sponge, which perfectly insures cleanliness. “Royal Polish” is strictly a first class dressing, elegant in style, convenient for use, and is designed to retail at 15 cents per bottle, which in larger than the old square bottle. One trial will satisfy the most fastidious, that it is superior in all particulars to any dressing ever offered for ladies’ use. Patent applied for. S.M. Bixby & Co., New York.
RVCDC
Subject S.M. Bixby & Co.
Allegories.
Chinese -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Columbia (Symbolic character)
Ethnic stereotypes.
Footbinding.
Kneeling.
Orientalism.
Polishes industry -- New York (State) -- New York.
Shoe polishes.
Shoes.
Women.
Women -- Chinese.
Racism in popular culture.
Lotus shoes.
Women.
AAPI.
Genre Anti-Chinese works.
Chromolithographs -- 1880-1890.
Racist caricatures.
Trade cards -- 1880-1890.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| trade cards - S.M. Bixby & Co. [P.2025.38]
Accession number P.2025.38

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