Details
Creator Reason, Patrick Henry, 1816-1898, engraver.
Contributor Wall, Thomas, associated name.
Title [Pictorial lettersheet containing illustration of "Am I Not a Woman and Sister"] [graphic] / Engraved by P. Reason, a colored young man of the city of New York, 1835.
Publisher [New York]
Publisher N.Y. New York. 1835
Date [ca. 1835]
Physical Description 1 print: engraving; sheet 25 x 20 cm (10 x 8 in.)
Description Illustration depicts the enslaved woman, bare-chested, kneeling on one leg, and holding up her chained hands as in prayer.
Notes Addressed to Mr. S. T. haulk [sic] Salburry [i.e., Salisbury] South Carolina.
Inscribed: Advertised July 1st.
Completed in manuscript from Thos. Wall, Granville, Ohio to "Dear Sir" on May 25, 1840. Reads: Dear Sir is this the way you th treat slaves - if so you had better set thith free and Let them go - the load be upon your head at the [bar?] of god. Then god Say all you an [sic] your slaves must come before god and then be juge [sic] at the Bar of god - Set the [?] free and Let he aogo [sic]. Let the slave go free - [?] and I am - Do you [sic] Work yourself.
Illustration of a kneeling male slave is a variant of the image popularized by Josiah Wedgwood. Formed in 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade designed and adopted as its seal the image of a supplicant African male slave asking "Am I not a man and a brother?" That same year, Wedgwood, a ceramics manufacturer and member of the Committee, issued the image as a medallion, which was distributed in America. The image became a popular anti-slavery icon and was soon widely reproduced on artifacts and in print in the United States and in Britain. During the 1820s, a female counterpart with the motto “Am I not a woman and a sister?” was created by British abolitionists and quickly embraced in the United States, particularly among women abolitionists.
Purchased with funds from the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation.
Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Purchase 2011.
Access points revised 2021.
Description revised 2021.
Biographical / historical note Reason was an African American artist, engraver and lithographer working in New York City in the 1830s and 1840s.
Subject Women slaves.
Antislavery movements -- United States.
African American engravers.
Anti-slavery prints -- United States
Enslaved women.
Kneeling female slave.
Genre Engravings -- 1830-1840.
Pictorial lettersheets -- 1830-1840.
Provenance Wall, Thomas, associated name.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| GC - Allegories [16971.Q]