Details
Title Clark's mile-end 60 spool cotton [graphic].
Publisher [Newark, N.J.] : [publisher not identified]
Publisher N.J. Newark. 1880
Date [ca. 1880]
Physical Description 1 print : chromolithograph ; sheet 8 x 11 cm (3 x 4.5 in.)
Description Racist trade card promoting Clark Thread Company and depicting a genre scene of an African American man and woman in conversation on a country road. The man and woman are portrayed with exaggerated features and speaking in the vernacular. Shows, in the left, the man standing on a dirt road and holding a piece of thread attached to a giant spool labeled "Clark's mile-end 60 spool thread." He is attired in black boots; yellow striped pants with patches on the knees and rolled to his calves; a white shirt; a red vest; and a green jacket. His straw hat is upturned on the ground beside him. In the right, an African American woman sits in a horse-drawn wagon holding the reins to a white horse. She tells the man, "Ef dat mile end thread don't hold, dere ain't anything - lucky I got a spool to mend yer old clos' with." She is attired in a yellow head kerchief and a red dress with yellow trim at the neck. The George A. Clark & Brother Company, manufactory of embroidery and sewing thread, was founded in 1863 in Newark, N.J. The firm was renamed Clark & Co. in 1879, and in the 1880s created a six-cord, soft finished thread called "Our New Thread" or "O.N.T." The business merged with J. & P. Coats in 1896, which lead to a series of mergers with fourteen other companies. Into the 21st century, the company continues to manufacture thread under the name Coats & Clark.
Notes Title from item.
Place of publication deduced from place of operation of advertised business.
Date deduced from history of the advertised business.
Text on recto: Ef dat mile end thread don't hold, dere ain't anything- lucky I got a spool to mend yer old clos' with.
Advertising text printed on verso: Clark's Mile-End Spool Cotton is the best for hand and machine sewing. Clark's Mile-End Colors are made expressly to match the leading shades of dress goods, and are unsurpassed both in quality and color. Clark's Mile-End Spool Cotton is six-cord in all numbers to 100 inclusive.
Stamp on the recto is illegible.
See related copy: Goldman Trade Card Collection - Clark [P.2017.95.33].
Gift of George Allen, 2022.
RVCDC
Subject Clark Thread Company.
African American men -- Caricatures and cartoons.
African American men -- Clothing & dress.
African American women -- Caricatures and cartoons.
African American women -- Clothing & dress.
Carts & wagons.
Conversation.
Horses.
Racism in popular culture.
Thread.
Thread industry -- New Jersey -- Newark.
Genre Chromolithographs -- 1870-1880.
Trade cards -- 1870-1880.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| Trade cards - C - Clark's [P.2022.42.7]
Accession number P.2022.42.7