| Description |
Racist trade card promoting Higgins' soap and depicting a caricature of an African American family getting ready for church.
The family is portrayed with exaggerated features and speak in the vernacular. In the center, the husband/father stands smiling
attired in a white ruffled shirt, a red and white bow tie, a yellow waistcoat, a long black jacket, red and white checked
pants, black shoes, and white gloves. The wife/mother, attired in a bonnet decorated with a blue bow and flowers, a red shawl,
a blue dress with black stripes, a yellow bow tie, and black shoes, smiles as she adjusts the bowtie on her husband and says,
“yer looks lubly Ephraim, and it all comes using dat Higgins soap.” Their son, attired in a yellow hat with a black band,
a red shirt with a white lace collar, green pants, red socks, and black shoes, looks up at the couple carrying a red book
in his left hand. In the left, behind the couple, are two more children. The girl in the left is attired in a white head kerchief,
a yellow shirt with orange stripes, a white skirt, red stockings, and black shoes. The boy in the right is attired in a blue
cap, a blue shirt with a white collar, blue pants, red and white striped socks, and black shoes. A print depicting a red building
and two people is pasted on the wall in the right background. The Charles S. Higgins Company, established by Higgins’s father
W. B. Higgins in Brooklyn in 1846, manufactured "German Laundry soap" beginning around 1860, when Charles assumed the business.
The laundry soap was packaged in a wrapper illustrated with an African American woman washing in a tub. By the early 1890s,
Charles S. Higgins left the firm still operated under his name and formed Higgins Soap Company. Court proceedings over trademarks
and tradenames ensued and Higgins Soap Company became insolvent by the mid 1890s.
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