Details
Creator Helmick, Howard, designer.
Title The brutal whipping of Matt [graphic] / H. Helmick.
Publisher [Hartford: s.n]
Publisher CONN. Hartford. 1897
Date [1897]
Physical Description 1 print: photomechanical; image 10x 16 cm. (4 x 6.5 in)
Description Illustration is included in Chapter XII, "Negro Matt, the Cooper -- Savage Bryson -- the Negro Overseer - An Agonizing but Unavailing Plea for Mercy -- A Slave-Whipping and a Tragedy." According to Livermore, the print shows the cooper, Matt, being whipped by a "gigantic" man as his master watches at the left. Other slaves look on in horror. Matt offense was accidentally burning his master in the blacksmith's shop. For this, Livermore explained, a "rope was roughly tied around his wrists, and thrown over a beam projecting from the roof of the shop, by which he was drawn up with jerks, until his toes barely touched the ground." The overseer, she noted, "stood by urging on the terrible flagellation, in the most brutal and fiendish manner conceivable." (p. 217)
Is part of Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice, 1820-1905. Story of my life. Hartford: A.D. Worthington & Co., 1897.
Notes Illustration in Mary Ashton Rice Livermore's The Story of my Life, or, The Sunshine and Shadow of Seventy Years (Hartford: A.D. Worthington & Co., 1897), p. 214.
Caption underneath the image reads: "The swish of a long whip flashed through the air. The lash sank with a cutting sound into Matt's quivering flesh. Shrieks of torture pierced the skies as blow after blow fell upon the body of the suffering man. I stood immovable, sick and faint, and heard and saw it all, paralyzed with horror and fear."
Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
Subject Slavery -- United States -- Pictorial works -- 19th century.
Slaves -- Punishment & torture -- United States.
Whipping.
Genre Photomechanical prints -- 1890-1900.
Book illustrations -- 1890-1900.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Books & Other Texts | Rare | Am 1897 Liv 29518.O p 214
Accession number 29518.O