Details
Title Ward, S. A. and A. F. (Samuel A. and Asahel F.)
Date fl. 1841-1857
Description Samuel A. and Asahel F. Ward, tailors, designers and "publishers of fashion" issued lithographic fashion plates in Philadelphia from 1841 to 1857. Sons of Allen Ward, who claimed to be "the first inventor, patentee and teacher of systematical rules of garment cutting," the Wards produced The Philadelphia Fashions & Tailors' Archetypes, a subscription-based publication containing garment cutting instructions accompanied by lithographed plates of patterns similar to the protractor and proof system created by local designer Francis Mahan. In a newspaper war that endured many years, their father accused Mahan of copying designs from old drafts of his work, resulting in several design competitions; an injunction against Mahan by Ward in 1839; and a libel suit by Mahan against Ward in 1840. By the 1840s both Mahan and the Wards were publishing fashion prints (the Wards' lithographed by Thomas Sinclair) depicting figures attired in seasonal fashions.
According to city directories, Samuel A. Ward (b. ca. 1812) began his tailoring business at 62 Walnut Street in 1841. He began publishing fashion plates as early as 1842 with Asahel F. Ward (1817-1895) from this location and in 1847, according to Peters, he exhibited at the Franklin Institute Exhibition of Manufacturers. In 1854 they removed to the second floor of 100 Chestnut Street, where they remained until Samuel moved to Chicago with his wife Jane A. (b. ca. 1810) in 1857 to pursue music printing. Asahel continued the business in Philadelphia at 335 Chestnut Street from 1857-1862, then tenanted 138 South Third Street until the end of the 1870s. He transitioned into a "reporter of fashions" in the 1880s.
Asahel resided on South Ninth and Tenth Streets in South Philadelphia (Wards 2, 3 and 4) with his wife Anna M. (b. ca. 1820) and their five children until his death in 1895.
Samuel A. remained in Chicago until at least 1877, after which time he is unlisted in the business and city directories.
Is part of Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
References See Mahan, Francis and Sinclair, Thomas
Call number Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Bibliographic citation AAS, Recent Acquisition: Quarterly Periodical for Tailors, <http://www.americanantiquarian.org/acquisitions061607.htm>
Census 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880
Chicago Business and City Directories, 1858-1877
Peters, 396
Philadelphia Business and City Directories, 1841-1883 (intermittently)
Philadelphia Inquirer, February 28, 1895
Public Ledger, August 8, 1844