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- Title
- Original & selected poetry &c
- Description
- Album belonging to Martina Dickerson, a young middle-class African American Philadelphian, probably created as a pedagogical exercise, with twenty-two contributions dating from 1840 until around 1846. Contains original and transcribed poems, prose, and essays on topics including love, friendship, sympathy, courage, and female refinement. Also includes drawings, primarily of flowers. Identified contributors are mainly Black elite scholars active in the African American anti-slavery and cultural community of mid-19th century Philadelphia., Contains the following contributions: calligraphed title page by abolitionist James Forten, Jr.; prose on "Literature," "The Album," and "The Year" by entrepeneur and abolitionist James Forten, Sr. or his son, James, Jr.; prose entitled "Perserverance" by tailor, abolitionist, and civil rights activist John C. Bowers; prose, sketches, and watercolors by Quaker abolitionist, educator, and artist, Sarah Mapps Douglass; watercolor and transcribed poem, "The First Steamboat on the Missouri," by Sarah's brother, artist, community activist, and abolitionist, Robert Douglass; essay entitled "Sympathy" by William Douglass, pastor and historian of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Philadelphia; transcription from Wordsworth's "Excursion" by educator and anti-slavery activist Charles L. Reason; gouache of a bunch of flowers by A.H.H., probably Ada Howell Hinton, an African American educator and anti-slavery activist; and prose, poems, and gouache by Mary M. MacFarland, V.E. Macarty, Y.J. Grice, Rebecca F. Peterson, H.D. Shorter, C.D.R., and J.F.V., Title from item., Inclusive range of dates inferred from entries inscribed with dates., Embossed and gilt morocco binding., Lithograph title page, "Flowers," containing flower illustration hand-colored with gouache and watercolor., Blank album published in London by Wm. & Hy. Rock., Lib. Company. Annual Report 1993, p. 17-25., Research file available at repository., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Dickerson, a pupil of African American educator Sarah Mapps Douglass, was the daughter of African American activists, Martin and Adelia Dickerson, and step-father Samuel Van Brackle.
- Creator
- Dickerson, Martina, 1829-1905
- Date
- [ca. 1840-ca. 1846]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Martina Dickerson album [13859.Q]
- Title
- [Album]
- Description
- Album belonging to Mary Anne Dickerson, a young middle-class African American Philadelphian, possibly created as a pedagogical exercise, with contributions dating from 1833 until 1882. Contains engraved plates depicting scenic views, and original and transcribed poems, prose, essays, and drawings on topics including friendship, motherhood, mortality, youth, death, flowers, female beauty, and refinement. Also contains a one page record of family deaths, marriages, and births with entries up to the birth of Mary Anne's grandson in 1882. Identified contributors are mainly Black elite scholars active in the African American anti-slavery and cultural communities of mid-19th century Philadelphia, New York, and Boston., Contains the following contributions: "The Mother's Joy," a poem by C.F., possibly by abolitionist and second wife of entrepreneur James Forten, Charlotte Vandine Forten; illustration after "The Boroom Slave" and the poem, "To the Album," by artist and activist Robert Douglass; prose, "To Mary Ann", about living a happy life by Philadelphian anti-slavery activist Amy Matilda Cassey; a memorial, "To My Dear Willie," by Mary Anne to her deceased son, William Jones; poem, "The Night of Death," by J.A.J., Mary Anne's husband, John A. Jones; Boston author and civil rights activist William C. Nell's transcription of the poem, "The Rights of Women"; allegorical prose on the meaning of life by New York abolitionist Harriet Forten Purvis; transcription of the poem, "The Pearl Diver," by white Philadelphian anti-slavery activist Arnold Buffum; prose to "Mary Annie" about remembrance by Ada, possibly by anti-slavery activist Sarah Forten Purvis or educator and anti-slavery activist Ada Howell Hinton; floral drawing by A.H.H., probably by Ada Howell Hinton; prose and floral watercolors by educator, abolitionist, and Quaker Sarah Mapps Douglass, the sister of Robert Douglass; "Lines Addressed to a Wreath of Flowers Designed on a Present for Mary Ann" by E.S. Webb, possibly Elizabeth Susan Webb, sister of novelist Frank J. Webb; and prose by Mary Anne about mortality. Additional entries of prose and poetry by John G. Dutton, E.S. Webb, Lydia A.B., Henrietta, W.F.P, and S.L.C., unattributed entry, "To Esther," and unattributed entry of a floral watercolor. Also contains engraved plates by A.B. Durand, C. Fielding, C.G. Childs, Robert Walter Weir, James Smillie and Thomas Cole entitled respectively, "Falls of the Sawkill"; "Italy, The Bay of Naples"; "Weehawken"; "Delaware Water Gap"; "Catskill Mountains"; "Fort Putnam"; and "Winnipiseogee Lake"., Title supplied by cataloguer., Inclusive range of dates inferred from entries inscribed with dates., Contains engraved illustrated title page: Album. The Mother's Joy., Blank album published in New York in 1833 by J.C. Ricker., Embossed and gilt morocco binding., Release of Dower document dated 1838 giving the Dickerson home to the surviving children, contemporary unidentified newspaper clippings, manuscript poetry transcriptions, contemporary greeting cards, trade card, and other miscellaneous loose items removed and housed separately., Lib. Company. Annual Report, 1993, p. 17-25., Research file available at repository., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Dickerson, a pupil of African American educator Sarah Mapps Douglass, was the daughter of African American activists, Martin and Adelia Dickerson, and step-father Samuel Van Brackle.
- Creator
- Dickerson, Mary Anne, 1822-1858
- Date
- [ca. 1833-ca. 1882]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Mary Anne Dickerson album [13860.Q]
- Title
- [Deborah Passmore Gillingham scrapbook of prints, drawings, and specimens]
- Description
- Scrapbook of chiefly engravings, drawings, and specimens compiled starting in 1847 by Quaker amateur artist Deborah P. Gillingham. Contains several circa 1810s-1850s book and periodical illustrations, including from "Godey’s Lady’s Book," the "Union Magazine", and the "Literary Souvenir" (London), that depict genre, sentimental, historical, European, and literary scenes and views, as well as portraits of prominent American and European literary, religious, and political figures, particularly abolitionists. Titles of illustrations include "Cinderella"; "Harvest Wagon"; "Bolton Abbey, Wharfdale"; "Lockport, Erie Canal"; "Bit"; "The Sisters Clio"; "Steps to Ruin"; "The Rescue"; "Warming the Mitten"; "Going to School"; "Queen Henrietta Interceding for the King"; "France, Lyon"; and "Fall of Terni." Many of the "Union Magazine" illustrations are after the work of artist Tompkins H. Matteson and depict scenes with children, women, families and/or couples. Illustrations also include the 1848 comic plate "The Lost Glove" depicting an African American servant and a dandy ("Union Magazine," April 1848) and an 1838? portrait of "Joanna," the enslaved woman with whom British–Dutch colonial soldier and author of "The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam" (1796, reprinted 1838) John Gabriel Stedman had a relationship. Portrait sitters include Lucretia Mott, Gerrit Smith, Elias Hicks, Thomas Clarkson, Thomas Moore, Daniel O’Connell, Alice B. Neale, and Benjamin Lundy. Illustrations also depict Philadelphia landmarks, including Franklin Institute, Schuylkill Water Works, and Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. Philadelphia views also include a separately-issued lithograph depicting Clermont Academy printed by Childs & Inman after George Lehman., A number of pencil works and ink drawings comprise the scrapbook with many captioned and depicting dwelling, landscape, and landmark views of Switzerland and Great Britain. Includes pencil sketch "from memory" of "Jungfrau, Switzerland" (Alps) by "E.B.E"; pencil drawing "The House in which Shakespeare was born. Henley Street. Strafford Upon Avon"; gouache and watercolors of "Chinese Fish"; pencil drawings with Chinese white captioned "Austin's Farm at Supiston Suffolk. The early residence of Robert Bloomfield" and "Mill at Bannockburn in which James 3rd was killed"; a pencil drawing of Friends Bank Meeting House inscribed "Mary Young"; pencil drawing of "Residence of George Fox" inscribed "John Young"; and two landscape watercolors by English Quaker social reformer and anti-slavery activist Elizabeth Heyrick., Scrapbook also contains several labeled botanical and material specimens from historical, Biblical, literary, and cultural landmarks and sites, as well as "Specimens of sea moss (i.e. algae) from Cape May May 1848" (one arranged in the letters "D.G.") and the hair of "E.M. Chandler." Often placed in folded sheets of paper with inscribed labels, specimens include "From the scene of Grays Elegy by Mantle Tower That Yew Tree shade"; "From the grave of Cromwell"; "Waterloo"; "Piece of South Sea Island Cloth"; "Mummy cloth unrolled by Gliddon 1851"(Egyptologist George Robbins Gliddon publically unwrapped mummies as performances in Boston and Philadelphia, 1851-1852); and "Pompei.", Additional items of note include a pencil sketch by Gillingham of "East Mount. The residence of John Pease England"; etchings depicting Suffolk landmarks by Henry Davy; the anti-slavery manuscript poem "America" signed and dated by British Quaker novelist, poet, and abolitionist Amelia Opie (Norwich 1846); the anti-slavery manuscript poem "Do as thou wouldst be done by"… signed and dated by British Quaker poet Bernard Barton (Woodbridge September 19, 1846); and circa 1847 calling cards by Chinese writing specialist Tsow Chaoong (Philadelphia 1847-1849) handwritten in English and Chinese characters “D.P. Gillingham” and "Y. M. Gillingham." A small number of circa 1900s clippings and photomechanical prints of portraits and landscapes also comprise the contents., Title supplied by cataloger., Date inferred from content., Inscribed on p. [1]: Deborah P. Gillingham 10 mo 20. 1847., Marbled paper binding., Several pages contain tissue paper overlays., Incomplete pencil sketch of dwellings on verso of drawing of "The River Side of Earlham" on p. [10]., Various artists, engravers, printers, and publishers include Childs & Inman; John Collins; Henry Davy; A. L. Dick; George Lehman; Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green; Tompkins H. Matteson; Henry Sadd; John Sartain; and Thomas Sinclair., RVCDC, Access points revised 2022., Housed in phase box., Number of items missing or removed from pages., Page numbers added by cataloger lower right corner., Loose pages and inserts of gold paper removed, placed in enclosure, and housed with scrapbook in phase book., Deborah Passmore Gillingham (1820-1877), cousin of professional botanical illustrator Deborah Griscom Passmore (1840-1911), was an amateur botanical illustrator. Disowned from the Orthodox Philadelphia Meeting, Northern District in 1842, Passmore became a member of the Hicksite Green Street Meeting. She married Philadelphia wool merchant Yeamans Moon Gillingham (1817-1885) in 1844 and relocated with him to Moorestown, N.J. in 1850 following his retirement. The couple had a son Aubrey Howard Gillingham (1850-1885). In 1855 the family was recommended by the Green Street Meeting for the Eversham Monthly Meeting, N.J. At her death, Gillingham was a member of the Moorestown Monthly Meeting. Among her bequests were funds to endow beds at the Philadelphia Orthopedic Hospital and Dispensary and the Women’s Hospital.
- Creator
- Gillingham, Deborah Passmore, 1820-1877, compiler
- Date
- [ca. 1810-ca. 1910, bulk 1830-1850]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2019.6]