Details
Creator Summers, William, artist.
Contributor Hunt, Charles.
Tregear, G.S., publisher.
Title Life in Philadelphia. "What you tink of my new poke bonnet...?" [graphic] / Hunt, Sc.
Publisher London: Published by Tregear, at his humourous Print Shop, Cheapside
Publisher ENG. London. 1833
Date [ca. 1833]
Physical Description 1 print: hand-colore aquatint; 21 x 16 cm.(8 x 6.25 in.)
Description Racist caricature depicting an African American woman trying on a bonnet in the company of her African American companion, "Frederick Augustus." Depicts the woman in profile, in front of a standing mirror tilted toward her, trying on a yellow Dunstable bonnet so large that the side of her face is obscured. Her hand rests on the side of the hat adorned with a green ribbon. Her reflection is not visible in the mirror. She wears a pink and yellow calico dress with a white collar that covers her shoulders, blue gloves, patterned stockings, and red slipper shoes. She asks "Frederick Augustus" what he thinks. He stands behind her with his arms crossed and looks toward the mirror. He holds a walking stick under his left upper arm. A dog with a muzzle sits behind him. He responds that he does not like the style. He wears a beard and is attired in a top hat, long blue overcoat with collar, yellow striped pants, white gloves, and black slipper shoes. A white woman sales clerk, wearing a large top-knot hairstyle, and attired in a green waistshirt, watches the woman from behind a counter on which other Dunstable bonnet and a candlestick are displayed. Bonnets, hat boxes, and packages on shelving and green and yellow bunting is visible above the clerk’s head. The figures are portrayed with oversized and exaggerated features.
Notes Title from item.
Date inferred from content and name of publisher.
After the work of Edward W. Clay.
Attributed to William Summers.
Plate 14 of the original series published in Philadelphia.
Contains seven lines of dialogue in the vernacular and dialect below the image: What you tink of my new poke bonnet Frederick Augustus? I don’t like him no how, case dey hide you lubly face, so you can’t tell one she nigger from anoder.
Inscribed: P.14.
Charles Hunt was a respected 19th-century London engraver who was most well known for his aquatints of sporting subjects.
Copy published in Philadelphia described in Pennsylvania Inquirer, 17 June 1830, p. 2 and ‘Life in Philadelphia, No. 14. The Dunstable Bonnet’, Pennsylvania Inquirer, 17 June 1830, p. 3.
RVCDC
Description revised 2021.
Access points revised 2021.
Subject African Americans -- Caricatures and cartoons -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
African American women -- Caricatures and cartoons -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
African American men -- Caricatures and cartoons -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
African American women -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
African Americans -- Clothing & dress -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Conversation.
Middle-class -- Clothing & dress -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Millinery.
Racism in popular culture.
Shopping -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Women clerks (Retail trade) -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Genre Caricatures -- 1830-1840.
Aquatints -- Hand-colored -- 1830-1840.
Printer Tregear, G.S., publisher.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| Life in Philadelphia (London Set) [P.8442]
Accession number P.8442