Details
Contributor Donaldson Brothers (Firm), printer.
Title Dixon's carburet of iron stove polish [graphic]
Publisher Five Points, N.Y. : Donaldson Brothers
Publisher N.Y. New York. 1885
Date [ca. 1885]
Physical Description 1 print : chromolithograph ; sheet 13 x 8 cm (5 x 3 in.)
Description Trade card promoting Joseph Dixon Crucible Company's stove polish and depicting a racist caricature of an African American woman nanny at work. Shows the nanny smiling, holding, and scrubbing an unclothed white girl, who is coated in black stove polish along her right side. The long, brown haired girl wears a red headband and is partially covered by a white cloth draped around by the nanny. The nanny uses a scrub brush under the right arm of the girl. The girl stands, her right leg raised, upon a table covered with a yellow tablecloth and stained by the polish. She looks down and touches the nanny's face with her right hand. She places her left hand over the woman's hand on her left side. The nanny is attired in a white head kerchief with red polka dots; a yellow short-sleeved shirt with red stripes; and a blue skirt. On the table is a plate; a brush; and boxes labeled Dixon's Stove Polish. Image also includes, in the left background, a stove with a steaming copper kettle and a partial view of a stove pipe and checkered flooring. The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company, established by Joseph Dixon in Salem, Mass. in 1827, produced graphite pencils, crucibles and stove polish, and relocated to Jersey City, N.J. in 1847. In 1868, the firm name changed from Joseph Dixon & Co. to the Jos. Dixon Crucible Co. In 1870 the firm won a trademark case against a Philadelphia competitor selling J.C. Dixon Stove Polish.
Notes Title from item.
Date deduced from history of the advertised business.
Advertising text printed on verso: Established 1827. Dixon's stove polish; over fifty years in the market. Neat; quick; brilliant, and lasting. No dust. No odor. Nothing will make a stovd (sic) so bright and cheerful for so long a time as the Dixon stove polish. It is by far the cheapest in use, in the long run. Buy it. Try it. Take no other. Pressed into a neat quarter-pound packet, absolutely free of adulteration. Six millions sold in 1881. Jos. Dixon Crucible Co., Jersey City, N.J.
Gift of David Doret.
Library Company holds duplicate copies [1975.F.235; P.9577.14; P.9599].
Subject Joseph Dixon Crucible Company.
African American caregivers.
African American women -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Cleaning.
Girls.
Kettles.
Nannies (Children's nurses)
Polishes.
Polishes industry -- New Jersey -- Jersey City.
Racism in popular culture.
Stoves.
Genre Chromolithographs -- 1880-1890.
Trade cards -- 1880-1890.
Printer Donaldson Brothers (Firm), printer.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| Goldman Trade Card Collection - Dixon [P.2017.95.44]
Accession number P.2017.95.44