Details
Contributor Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company, printer.
Title Tuesday. Yes my heart is light, for de close iron white, and dat is jist what tickles me, for without Higgins' soap, you have'nt any hope, so please to take pattern by me [graphic].
Publisher Boston : Forbes Co
Publisher MASS. Boston. 1880
Date [ca. 1880]
Physical Description 1 print : chromolithograph ; sheet 12 x 8 cm (4.5 x 3 in.)
Description Racist trade card promoting Higgins’ soap and depicting a caricature of an African American woman domestic ironing a white sheet. The woman is portrayed with exaggerated features and speaks in the vernacular. Shows the African American woman with her hair in pigtail braids tied at the ends in white bows, attired in an orange and yellow striped head kerchief, a red and white shawl, a blue dress with black stripes, a white apron with red stripes, orange and white striped stockings, and black shoes. She stands behind an ironing board and holds a white sheet in her left hand and an iron in her right hand. The ironing board sits on top of a wooden stool and a red and yellow box labeled “Higgins’ German Laundry Soap.” The woman smiles at the viewer and says, “Yes my heart is light, for de close iron white, and dat is jist what tickles me, for without Higgins' soap, you have'nt any hope, so please to take pattern by me.” In the background is a white sheet hanging over a wooden board. 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.
Notes Title from item.
Date deduced from history of the advertised business.
Gift of David Doret.
Subject Charles S. Higgins Company.
African American household employees -- Caricatures and cartoons.
African American women -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Chemical industry -- New York (State) -- New York.
Irons (Pressing)
Laundry.
Racism in popular culture.
Soaps.
Genre Chromolithographs 1870-1880.
Trade cards -- 1870-1880.
Printer Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company, printer.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| Goldman Trade Card Collection - Higgins' [P.2017.95.83]
Accession number P.2017.95.83