Details
Contributor Dallas.
Title "Virginia hoe-down" [graphic] / Dallas del.
Publisher [New York: Harper & Brothers]
Publisher NY. New York. 1855
Date [December 1855]
Physical Description 1 print: wood engraving; image 10 x 12 cm. (4 x 4.75 in)
Description Aboard a steamer on the Mississippi River, a black deck-hand and a fiddler hold their own "Virginia hoe-down." The engraving accompanies T.B. Thorpe's "Remembrances of the Mississippi," and corresponds with a passage in which he describes the festive, light-hearted, and "happy" nature of "the negroes of the Mississippi." "With professional boat-men," Thorpe wrote," they are always favorites, and at night, when the 'old ark' is tied up, their acme of human felicity is a game of 'old sledge,' enlivened by a fiddle. On such ocassions the master of the instrument will touch off the 'Arkansas traveler,' and then gradually sliding into a 'Virginia hoe-down,' he will be accompanied by a genuine darkie keeping time, on the light and fantastic heel-and-toe tap." (p. 37) As the deck-hand dances and the fiddler plays, two boatmen play cards and a third looks on.
Is part of Harper's new monthly magazine. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1855.
Notes Illustration in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 12, no. 67 (December 1855), p. 38.
Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Subject African American men -- Caricatures & cartoons.
African American dance
Steamboats -- Mississippi River.
Genre Wood engravings -- 1850-1860.
Periodical illustrations -- 1850-1860.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Books & Other Texts | Rare | Per H 9 62992.O v 12 n 67 December 1855 p 38
Accession number 62992.O