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Title: The black Republicans at their devotions
Description: Cartoon exploiting the stereotypes of the factions comprising the recently formed antislavery political party, the Republicans, before the Presidential Election of 1856. Depicts a meeting of the party members singing "Du da, du da." In the left is a white man, attired in a brimmed hat, a white collared shirt, a white waistcoat, and a black jacket and carrying a paper that reads, “Bobtail Hoss.” He represents a "puritanical bigot" abolitionist “who goes strongly in favor of stealing negroes.” In the center is a white man, attired in a white collared shirt, a black bowtie, a black waistcoat, and a black jacket, who is a "disciple of Free Love and Fremont" (i.e., John C. Fremont, the Republican presidential nominee). In the right, is a white man, wearing long hair and a beard and attired in spectacles, a ruffled, white collar shirt with a brooch, and a black jacket, who represents the "long bearded spiritualist." In the left foreground is an African American man, portrayed in racist caricature, who remarks in the vernacular, “Mass mos’ as good as brudder Bones.” In the background, more people sing “Du da,” including a woman, attired in spectacles, and described as “a hooked nosed, masculine crocodile, who is descanting upon woman’s rights and niggers’ wrongs.” Also visible is a statue of a man holding a staff atop a pedestal labeled “Du da.”, Title from item., Date inferred from content., Text printed on recto, below image: “The Mustang colt is young and strong, Du da du da; His wind is good, his knees not sprung, Du da du da da!” The artist has given in this group a representative of nearly all the isms that go to make up the pie-bald conglomeration of which the Black Republican party is composed. Here is the long-bearded spiritualist, who, like his candidate, has more hair than brains; then we have the genuine Aminidab Sleek, or the true disciple of Free Love and Fremont; then there is the sour, morose, puritanical bigot, who goes strongly in favor of stealing negroes, because their services can be secured at a much lower rate than he would have to pay white men; the darkey, emerging from below, is grinning with ferocious delight at the ‘Du da du,’ which is to exalt niggers above “sassy white people;” there is a wide and foul-mouthed slang-monger, in the back-ground, who goes in for free discussion on one side; a hooked nosed, masculine crocodile, who is descanting upon woman’s rights and niggers’ wrongs, because he is too lazy to work. There is the picture—look at it. Du da du. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning. Black Republicans sing foolish songs while the glorious fabric which our fathers reared in peril and blood, is dissolving in the fires of fanaticism. They make no appeal to our reason, but to our imagination; the reason and the judgment is not addressed, only our passions and our prejudices. They cannot sing a mere political adventurer into the Presidential chair., Originally part of American political caricatures, likely a scrapbook, accessioned 1899. Collection primarily comprised of gifts from Samuel Breck, John A. McAllister, and James Rush., 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 the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: [1856]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1856-Bla [5760.F.94]

Title: Original & selected poetry &c
Description: Friendship album of Amy Matilda Cassey, a middle-class African American woman active in the antislavery movement and African American cultural community, containing contributions dating from 1833 until 1856. Contains original and transcribed poems, prose, and essays on topics including slavery, womanhood, religion, friendship, female refinement, death, and love. Also contains drawings, watercolors, and gouaches of flowers and a rustic, residential scene, possibly in New York. Contributors, including many women from the antebellum African American elite community, are prestigious reformers and abolitionists active in the anti-slavery, scholarly, educational, and cultural community of the antebellum North, including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Baltimore., Contains the following contributions: entry by African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, dated Philadelphia 1850, about his "coarse" contribution in an album of "refined" entries; an original sonnet, "Fallen Bird," and essay, "The Abolition Cause," by anti-slavery activist, author, and editor, William Lloyd Garrison, dated Philadelphia 1833; floral watercolors and calligraphed poems by Philadelphia Quaker activist, educator, and artist Sarah Mapps Douglass; essay, "Moral Reform," dated Philadelphia 1834, by Harrisburg businessman and activist William Whipper; calligraphed version of Washington Irving's poem, "The Wife," by New York African American engraver Patrick Henry Reason dated New York 1839; poem about "Friendship" dated 1837 by anti-slavery activist Robert Purvis; prose on faith penned in 1853 by women right's activist and abolitionist Lucy Stone;, floral watercolors, poems and prose on friendship, womanhood, abolition, and remembrance by Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society associates Rebecca Buffum, Susan C. Wright, and sisters Hannah L. Stickney and Mary T. Stickney, and sisters Mary Forten (p.10), Margaretta Forten, and Sarah Forten Purvis, as well as their sister-in-law Mary Virginia Wood Forten (p.22); memorials to his deceased wife and daughter by Baltimore African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne written in 1849; and an essay by abolitionist Reverend Isiah George DeGrasse dated Bridgewater 1836. Additional contributions by Baltimore anti-slavery activist Emily Willson; anti-slavery activists Ann Warren Weston and Elizabeth Le Brun (Stickney) Gunn; Philadelphia barber and activist John Chew; abolitionist James Miller M'Kim; University of Glasgow trained activist James McCune Smith; Boston reformer Wendell Phillips; C.L.R., possibly Charles L. Reason, abolitionist and brother of engraver Patrick Henry Reason; A.W.H., possibly Quaker abolitionist Anna W. Hopper, and E.G., possibly Quaker abolitionist Elizabeth Garrigues., Also includes sketches and a poem by probably Lydia A. Bustill and unattributed watercolors and sketches possibly by Amy Matilda Cassey., Title from item., Inclusive range of dates inferred from entries inscribed with dates., Embossed and gilt morocco binding with blue moiré silk doublures., Lib. Company Annual Report 1998, p. 25-35., Research file available at repository., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Cassey, an abolitionist, temperance and civil rights activist and founding member of the multiracial Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and the African American literary and science society, Gilbert Lyceum, was the daughter of New York black community leader, Reverend Peter Williams. She was the wife of Philadelphia businessman and civil rights activist Joseph Cassey, and later married Boston anti-slavery lecturer Charles Lenox Remond.
Creator: Cassey, Amy Matilda, 1808-1856
Date: [ca. 1833-ca. 1856]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764]

Title: American sympathy and Irish blackguardism
Description: Cartoon depicting conflicting responses to the condemnation of slavery in the U.S. by Daniel O'Connell, an Irish abolitionist and leader of the movement for Irish independence (i.e. Irish Repeal Movement). Depicts O'Connell confronting President John Tyler as his son, Robert, an Irish repeal advocate introduces him. O'Connell, attired as an Irish thug, holds a club labeled "Agitation" and a bag labeled "Repale Rint." He condemns John Tyler for being an enslaver, "Arrah! give up your slaves I'd rather shake hands with a pick-pocket than wid a slaveholder, and if we get our repale we'll set em all free..." President Tyler, who was passively against slavery, greets O'Connell stating his support of repeal. Robert Tyler, dressed effeminately, and with "Ahasuerus" and the "Epitaph on Robert Emmett" (an earlier Irish patriot), the poems he authored in his pocket, confirms his father's support of repeal and proposes that the sale of his work could benefit the Irish cause. William Lloyd Garrison, who is to the right of O'Connell, states his support for O'Connell but not Irish repeal. An African American man, portrayed in racist caricature and speaking in the vernacular, overlooks the scene and says, "By jolly I wish Massa Harry Clay was here -- Dis dam low Irishman not dare talk to him dat way!", Title from item., Entered according to an act of Congress in the year 1843 by H.R.R. Robinson in the Clerk's Office in the District court for the Sc District of N.Y., Purchase 1958., 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., Clay, born in Philadelphia, was a prominent caricaturist, lithographer, and engraver.
Creator: Clay, Edward Williams, 1799-1857, artist
Date: 1843
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political cartoons - 1843-2 [6258.F]

Title: Practical amalgamation
Description: Racist print promoting anti-abolitionists' fears of multiracial personal relationships. Depicts a parlor scene where two interracial couples court on a couch. In the left, an attractive white women sits on the lap of an African American man. The man, depicted in racist caricature with grotesque facial features, holds a guitar in his right hand as she engages him in a kiss. In the right, a rotund African American woman holds a fan in her right hand as she is wooed by a slender white man on his knees who kisses her left hand. Portraits of abolitionists Arthur Tappan, Daniel O'Connell (a radical Irish abolitionist), and John Quincy Adams are hung on the wall behind the couch. A white and black dog are in the left corner., Title from item., First of a series of five., Lib. Company. Annual Report, 2015, p. 41., Purchase 1957., 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 the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Clay, born in Philadelphia, was a prominent caricaturist, engraver, and lithographer who created the "Life in Philadelphia" series which satirized middle-class African-Americans of the late 1820s and early 1830s.
Creator: Clay, Edward Williams, 1799-1857, artist
Date: 1839
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1839-Pra 1 [6207.F]

Title: The follies of the age, vive la humbug!!
Description: Critique of the social climate of the year of 1855 mocking several of the year's fads, social movements, and major events, many specific to the city of Philadelphia. Depicts several individual scenes occurring on an active street lined by businesses near a river. Depictions include: a scene representing the case of Jane Johnson, an African American woman freedom seeker aided by abolitionist Passmore Williamson; a group of ragged and armed white men filibusters holding the banner "Sam" rushing off to free Central America from European control; a stand where one is "allowed to drink 48 glasses of Lager Beer" where a white man police officer tries to stop a white man drunkard; a group of white women Mormons on a cart headed to "Salt Lake City"; a white man hugging two white women as his angry wife looks on and calls them "Ceresco free-lovers" after the Utopian society that lasted until 1855; two motley groups of local militias drilling; a caricature of the popular French actress Rachel who had an inauspicious debut in Philadelphia; and groups of individuals partaking of "water cures" and "sea baths." In the background the Camden Amboy train crash of 1855 is depicted as well as the destruction by fire of the Philadelphia steamer "John Stevens.", Title from item., Date inferred from content., Accessioned 1998., 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.
Date: [1855?]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1855-Fol [P.9624]

Title: Immediate emancipation illustrated
Description: Critical satire of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which was founded on the principle of immediate abolition by Arthur Tappan and William Lloyd Garrison, who are depicted discussing the society's principles with an unnamed abolitionist, possibly Lewis Tappan. Above their heads is the banner "Anti Slavery Society Founded Anno Domini MDCCCXXXIII." The seated Garrison comments on the origin of the bundle of Italian linen at his feet, which is to be used for his newspaper "the Emancipator." In the right, the figure of a leopard rests upon a pedestal marked "Fanaticism. Brought the Inquisition upon Spain. Beggary upon Italy. And may drench America in blood!!" (an allusion to the idiom a leopard cannot change its spots and to the Spain and the Iberian War, 1807-1814). In the left, a Black man, labeled "Emancipated Slave," is portrayed in racist caricature and is naked except for a leaves wrapped around his waist. He chases an insect calling, "Food," while carrying a knife. In the background, a scene labeled "Insurection (sic) in St. Domingo! Cruelty, Lust, and blood!" depicts Black people using swords and axes to kill white people, including a white woman on the ground. A building burns behind them., Title from item., Date supplied by Weitenkampf., Probably the "A Caricature" cited in the Emancipator (New York, N.Y.), October 19, 1833 and Liberator (Boston, Mass.), November 2, 1833., The "Emancipated Slave" figure is similar to the figure depicted in the lithograph by Alfred Ducôte, "An Emancipated Negro" ([London]: Thomas McLean, 1833). Copies in the collections of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London., Purchase 1986., 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 the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: [1833]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1833 - 27W [P.9140]

Title: A grand slave hunt, or trial of speed for the presidency, between celebrated nags Black Dan, Lewis Cass, and Haynau
Description: Cartoon criticizing presidential candidates Daniel Webster (i.e., Black Dan) and Lewis Cass's avid support for the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law during the election of 1852. Shows Webster, carrying a copy of the Fugitive Slave Law and a flag, leading a group of white men, including the lagging Michigan Senator Lewis Cass; the infamously cruel Hungarian General Baron Haynau with a pitcher of "Barclay Best" on his head (a symbolic reference to the brewery workers who attacked him in England); and President Millard Fillmore holding a Fugitive Slave Bill. They pursue an enslaved African American woman who runs clutching a baby in her arms and holding the hand of her young son. Additional figures in the background include Horace Mann, Massachusetts Congressman and opponent of the Compromise of 1850; an orator resembling Webster bombasting Mann before a group of kneeling white men admirers; a preaching white man minister with Bible in hand; and an African American woman freedom seeker with her child being tugged between a yelling man and a white man mercenary carrying handcuffs., Title from item., Date of publication supplied by Weitenkampf., Purchase 1967., 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.
Date: [1852]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1852-7W [P.9676]

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