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Mechanical target and gun. Mutual Novelty Manufacturing Co., 813 Girard Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. [graphic].
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Details
Title
Mechanical target and gun. Mutual Novelty Manufacturing Co., 813 Girard Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. [graphic].
Publisher
[Philadelphia] : [publisher not identified]
Publisher
PA. Philadelphia. 1877
Date
[ca. 1877]
Physical Description
1 print : relief ; sheet 23 x 14 cm (9 x 5.5 in.)
Description
Illustrated flier for "comic head" mechanical target issued by the Mutual Novelty Manufacturing Company. Contains image of target (Patented Aug 28 1877), which includes the racist, comic head of an African American clown, portrayed in caricature with a slack jaw and grotesque features, and pictorial details of the "Target Arrow" (Pat. Sep. 5 1876). Flier also contains vignette of "Toy Target Arrow For Boys and Girls." Shows a child's hand pulling the arrow through an egg-shaped barrel. Vignette surrounded by advertising text reading "Throws the Arrow very accurately, and affords hours of amusement for both young and old. Made of hard wood, finely polished, beautifully colored. Price, per gross, $35.00 nett. Sample, by mail, 50 cts." Mutual Novelty Manufacturing Co. operated until at the least the 1920s.
Notes
Title from item.
Date inferred from content.
Several lines of advertising text printed below image explicating the size, construction, price, and shipping of toy, and advertising potential of "Target and Envelope." Text also includes the solicitation that "Agents can earn over $30,000 weekly, and Canvassers from house to house more than $3.00 daily, selling our different Novelties. We would like to make you an Agent, and if you send out Sub Agents you can make upwards of $2,000 yearly."
Purchased with funds from the Walter J. Miller Trust for the Visual Culture Program.
RVCDC
Description revised 2021.
Access points revised 2021.
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 Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Subject
Mutual Novelty Manufacturing Co.
African American men -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Clowns.
Novelties.
Racism in popular culture.
Targets (Sports).
Toy guns.
Toy industry -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Genre
Fliers -- 1870-1880.
Relief prints -- 1870-1880.
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| Ph Pr - 8x10 - Advertisements - M [P.2013.36.4]
Accession number
P.2013.36.4
In Collections
African American History Prints and Watercolors and Drawings
Race and Visual Culture Digital Collection, 1866-1900
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