© Copyright 2025 - The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107. TEL (215) 546-3181 FAX (215) 546-5167
For inquiries, please contact our IT Department
(34,351 - 34,357 of 34,357)
- Title
- Sharpless & Sons, Philadelphia
- Description
- Trade card promoting dry goods merchant Sharpless & Sons and depicting a Chinese boy sitting on an oversized fan. Shows the boy, wearing a queue hairstyle and attired in a blue robe with red trim and a green sash around the waist, green stockings, and slip-on shoes, sitting with his back to the viewer on a large fan. The gold hand fan is decorated with a bird and flowers. Chinese characters are written in the left. Sharpless & Sons were importers, jobbers, and retailers of dry goods that operated from 801, 803, 805, & 807 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Purchased 2015., RVCDC
- Date
- [ca. 1880]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Berman Trade Card Collection - Sharpless [P.2015.56.774]
- Title
- Compliments of John Wanamaker & Co. Clothiers, Chestnut below Ninth
- Description
- Trade card promoting dry goods merchant and clothier John Wanamaker & Co. and depicting a caricaturized Japanese boy playing a stringed instrument to a small dog. In the center, the boy, attired in a multi-colored, patterned kimono, geta shoes, and a straw conical hat, plays a stringed instument. In the left, a small black-and-white dog stands on his hind legs., Title from item., Date inferred from dates of operation of business advertised., Stamped on recto: Branch House, No. 10 Sixth Street, Pittsburgh., Purchased 2015., John Wanamaker and his brother-in-law Nathan Brown formed Wanamaker & Brown and opened the store Oak Hall at Sixth and Market Streets in 1861. Brown died in 1868. In 1869, the firm became John Wanamaker & Co., and he opened a store at Eighth and Chestnut Streets. John Wanamaker's Grand Depot at Thirteenth and Market Streets, opened in 1876 to cater to Centennial Exhibition crowds.
- Date
- [ca. 1870]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Berman Trade Card Collection - John Wanamaker & Co. [P.2015.56.463]
- Title
- John Griffeth. Furniture warerooms, 119 N. Second St., Philad'a, PA A full assortment of chamber and parlor suits, mattresses and bedding, &c
- Description
- Trade card promoting John Griffeth's furniture store and depicting Asian decorative motifs and objects, including fans, a parasol, cranes, and mountains. Shows vignettes of: a parasol and two fans in a blue and white porcelain container; two standing cranes, one eating a frog; and two mountain peaks. John Griffeth established his furniture business in 1880., Title from item., Date inferred from dates of operation of business advertised., Purchased 2015.
- Date
- [ca. 1890]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Berman Trade Card Collection - Griffeth [P.2015.56.316]
- Title
- Historical monument of our country
- Description
- Allegorical print after the 1858 painting by German-born painter Johann Michael Enzing-Müller documenting the history of the United States from ca. 1000 to the 1850s. In the right foreground, Norsemen, some seated and some standing on ground marked "1000" are portrayed discovering North America, which they called Vinland. A few of the men hold bunches of grapes, a shield, or a spear. In the left foreground, Columbus stands on a shore, between a rowboat holding white men, one writing in a ledger and with his back to an enslaved Black man in shackles, and a group of Indigenous people wearing headdresses. Columbus holds a flag into the ground marked "1492" and a sword up into the air. Behind the scene Plymouth Rock with the date "1620" inscribed on it is visible. In the center of the image, white men in different era attire use tools, convene, or celebrate near a trunk, cargo, and a stone wall. Beside them, in the right, a Pilgrim family (man, woman, child) rests near a frontiersman completing a blanket tent near cattle. In the upper right, the image contains scenes representing the American Revolution, including soldiers at battle and wounded men being attended to. In the upper left, ships and trains depicted near cityscape strewn with people and from which an American flag flies represents American progress. In the upper center, the American eagle mauls the British lion and unicorn on a stone mound. At top center, on a pyramid-like structure adorned with the shields of the states of the Union, George Washington stands with his hand on the Constitution which rests on an ornate stand. To his left are the fourteen presidents who followed him standing in a line. Above them, are allegorical women figures of Liberty and Justice. An allegorical female figure holding the Declaration of Independence sits to Washington's right. Behind the Presidents and pyramid is the new U.S. Capitol building with a dome., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyright 1893, by Myers, Bryn & Cranford., RVCDC
- Creator
- Enzing-Müller, Johann Michael, 1804-1808
- Date
- c1893
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department ***GC-Allegories [P.2023.42.1]
- Title
- Siebentes allgemeines Saengerfest in Philadelphia vom 13-16 Juni 1857. = Seventh General Singer Festival in Philad. Pa. 13 to the 16 of June 1857
- Description
- Print showing seven vignettes depicting the seventh general Singer Festival in Philadelphia from June 13 to 16, 1857. In the top are two vignettes of Lemon Hill mansion built 1799-1800 for businessman Henry Pratt in East Fairmount Park. In the left, shows an exterior view of the south side of the mansion with men and women sitting and standing on the lawn and the porch. In the right, shows an exterior view of the north side with a stage in the left. A woman stands in the doorway, and people stand on the porch. In the top center, Columbia, depicted as a white woman lifting a sword in the air, holds hands with Germania, depicted as a white woman with her left hand on the hilt of her sword. In front of them is a American crested shield that reads, “Liberti.” In the center, shows a procession of soldiers, some on horseback, a marching band, and men who hold flags that read, “Sangerbund Philadelphia.” Spectators look on including a group of two African American men and an African American boy. In the bottom left is a triumphal arch decorated with an American and a German flag that leads to a path towards a building with large flags flying on top. In the center is an interior view of the Academy of Music with one thousand singers on the stage and a packed audience watching. In the right, a crowd stands around the “standard tree" decorated with flags. In 1844, several years after Pratt’s death, Lemon Hill became the first mansion acquired by the city of Philadelphia to establish a public park, i.e., Fairmount Park. The residence was used as a lager beer garden following the establishment of the park in 1855., Title from the item., Date inferred from content., In German with English., Contents: Lemonhill south side -- Eintracht macht stark. Unity is strength -- Lemonhill north side -- Festzug der Saenger nach Lemonhill. March of the singers to the excursion at Lemonhill -- Triumhbogen. Triumphal Arch -- Concert given in the Academy of Music by 1000 singers -- Fahnenbaum. Standard tree., Gift of David Doret.
- Creator
- Fuchs, F, engraver
- Date
- [ca. 1857]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *Ph Pr - Events - Singer [P.2007.28.27]
- Title
- Arre st of the slave George Kirk
- Description
- Cartoon portraying the arrest during the New York case of the freedom seeker George Kirk. Kirk, enslaved by Georgia enslaver Charles Chapman had concealed himself on a Savannah brig traveling to New York City. While docked in New York, Kirk was discovered and beaten before being sheltered at the American Anti-Slavery Society office on Nassau Street. He had taken refuge at the office following his being ordered to be returned to Georgia on a legal technicality after having been previously freed by the court. In response, abolitionists including, lawyers Lois Napoleon and John Jay, editor of the "National Anti-Slavery Standard" Sydney Howard Gay, and sugar refinery proprietor Dennis Harris conceived a plan to secure Kirk's freedom through his concealment and transport from the Nassau Street office in a box addressed to abolitionist Rev. Ira Manley in Essex, New York. Kirk was discovered and arrested during the transport. Kirk was later freed through a legal argument presented by Jay. Depicts a horse-drawn dray labeled "D. Harris" on which Kirk, portrayed in racist caricature, is within a crate. Kirk is being pulled by police from the crate. "Tracts" fly out from the wooden box and its cover marked "Rev. Ira Manley, Essex, New York. This side up with Care" has fallen to the side of the dray. Kirk exclaims "Gorra mighty massa you take away my bref! dis child didn't come into de box hisself! de bobalitionists put him in it!!" White police men reach for him and make comments and threats, including smelling "a rat"; shaking "the life out of (Kirk)"; and the "Carman" having a "rather black job." The white carman, his hands on the reins of the horse and looking back, responds "It ain't anything else." Scene also includes a middle-class Black woman holding a parasol and middle-class Black man, who with a monocle to his eye, exclaims "Ponhona. Here's a game!! while standing near a group of white men abolitionists also witnessing the moment. The frowning abolitionists, including possibly Elias Smith, make comments and observations, including about Kirk being again "in the hands of Philistines"; having to take out "another habeus corpus ... at any expense"; and Manley being disappointed in "not receiving his consignment." Elias Smith procured a writ of habeus corpus for Kirk before his first court appearance., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entd according to Act of Congress in the year 1846 by H.R. Robinson, in the Clerk's office of the Distt Court of the U. States, for the southn District of New York., RVCDC, Clay, born in Philadelphia, was a prominent caricaturist, lithographer, and engraver who created the "Life in Philadelphia" series which racistly satirized middle-class African American Philadelphians in the late 1820s and early 1830s.
- Creator
- Clay, Edward Williams, 1799-1857, artist
- Date
- 1846
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1846-7W [P.2024.43.1]
- Title
- American Methodism. 1872
- Description
- Premium print for subscribers of the "The Methodist," the journal published by the Methodist Episcopal Church beginning about 1859. Contains five titled scenes and views bordered by twenty-nine bust-length portraits of leaders within the Methodist Episcopal Church, including Francis Burns, African American deacon and missionary bishop to Liberia. Scenes and views include "Wesley Rescued from the Burning Building" (upper left) after the 1840 Henry Peele Parker painting and depicting church founder John Wesley as a child being rescued from the window of the rectory in which his family lived while men, women, and children gather water, support a platform, pray, and huddle together; "John Wesley Preaching on the Tombstone of his Father" (upper right) after the Alfred Hunt painting and depicting Wesley preaching to a mass of people from the grave of his father, Rector Samuel Wesley (St. Andrew's Church, Epworth, England) following his being forbidden to preach in the Anglican church; "Old John Street Church, New York" (lower left) showing a colonial street view with pedestrian traffic in front of the church of the oldest Methodist congregation in the United States; "Pioneer Preacher" (center) showing Wesley on horseback, two persons at his side, and arriving at a cabin in the woods where a number of people have gathered in front; and "Tremont St. Methodist Church, Boston" (lower right) showing an exterior view of the church built in 1862 from a design by architect Hammatt Billings and was the site of the founding of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Portraits include: John Wesley; Thomas S. Coke; Francis Asbury; Richard Whatcoat; Leonidas L. Hamline; John Emory; Robert R. Roberts; William McKendree; Enoch George; Elijah Hedding; Beverly Walch; Francis Burns; Edmund S. Janes; Matthew Simpson; Osmon C. Barker; Levi Scott; Thomas Bowman; William. L. Harris; Edward R. Ames; Edward Thomson; Thomas A. Morris; Calvin Kingsley; Davis W. Clark; Stephen M. Merrill; Edward G. Andrews; Randolph S. Foster; Isaac W. Wiley; Thomas A. Morris; Gilbert Haven; and Jesse T. Peck., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress A.D. 1872 by B.B. Russell in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington., RVCDC
- Creator
- Buttre, John Chester, 1821-1893, engraver
- Date
- 1872
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *group portrait prints - American [P.2024.44]

