Aboard a steamer on the Mississippi River, a black deck-hand and a fiddler hold their own "Virginia hoe-down." The engraving accompanies T.B. Thorpe's "Remembrances of the Mississippi," and corresponds with a passage in which he describes the festive, light-hearted, and "happy" nature of "the negroes of the Mississippi." "With professional boat-men," Thorpe wrote," they are always favorites, and at night, when the 'old ark' is tied up, their acme of human felicity is a game of 'old sledge,' enlivened by a fiddle. On such ocassions the master of the instrument will touch off the 'Arkansas traveler,' and then gradually sliding into a 'Virginia hoe-down,' he will be accompanied by a genuine darkie keeping time, on the light and fantastic heel-and-toe tap." (p. 37) As the deck-hand dances and the fiddler plays, two boatmen play cards and a third looks on., Illustration in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 12, no. 67 (December 1855), p. 38., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Date
[December 1855]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per H 9 62992.O v 12 n 67 December 1855 p 38, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2868
Racist photograph showing a seated African American man, attired in a gorilla mask, a coat, striped, patterned pants, socks, and shoes, facing right. Also included in the image is a patterned, tile floor., Title from manuscript note on mount., Date inferred from content., During the Civil War, the U.S government declared African American freedom seekers as "contraband of war.", Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of humorous caricatures and photographs. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Created postfreeze., 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
[ca. 1863]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department cdv - miscellaneous - Civil War - Caricatures & cartoons [5780.F.51j]
Photographic reproduction of an anti-Confederate political cartoon showing a dilapidated graveyard of tombstones and a mausoleum inscribed with vitriolic epitaphs for predominately prominent military figures from the Confederate States. The fictionalized deceased include Generals P.G.T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, John B. Floyd, Robert E. Lee, Leonidas Polk and Henry A. Wise in addition to Vice-President Alexander Stephens. Within the cemetery, an African American man with a bayonet peers out from behind a tombstone near a debris-strewn path marked "secession, mob rule, and nullification." Plantations burn in the background., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Publisher's imprint printed on verso., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of humorous caricatures and photographs. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Created postfreeze., 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
[ca. 1863]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department cdv - McAllister & Brother - Caricatures & cartoons [5780.F.52o]