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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: 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: A mark of friendship's pleasing power
Description: Album page with embossed border and containing a drawing depicting a bunch of flowers above a four-line sentimental poem about friendship and rememberance. Flowers include a rose. Other flowers are depicted in the colors of orange, red, and violet. Image also includes a stem and leaves., Title from manuscript verse., Probably by civil rights activist and educator Ada Howell Hinton who founded a school in 1849. Hinton was daughter of Philadelphia African American elite community member, barber, perfumer, and abolitionist Frederick Augustus Hinton., Contains four lines of verse: A mark of friendship pleasing power,/In this small trifle see/And sometimes in a lonely hour,/View it and think of me., RVCDC, Description revised 2022.
Date: ca. 1840
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Martina Dickerson album [13859.Q.73]

Title: [Vase of flowers]
Description: Album page with embossed border and containing a drawing of a vase of flowers. Shows an arrangement of flowers including roses, camellias, pansies and forget-me-nots, in an urn-shaped vase. Border is composed of a leaf design., Title supplied by cataloguer., Date from album page., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Douglass, was an artist, prominent Quaker member of the Philadelphia African American elite community, educator, and anti-slavery activist.
Creator: Douglass, S. M. (Sarah Mapps), 1806-1882, artist
Date: 1843
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Martina Dickerson album [13859.Q.78]

Title: [Assorted flowers]
Description: Album page containing a pencil drawing of an arrangement of assorted flowers of different varieties drawn when the album was in a horizontal position. Arrangment also includes leaves and flower buds., Title supplied by cataloguer., Date from item., Probably by Lydia A. Bustill., Lydia A. Bustill, was an anti-slavery activist and cousin of educator, artist, and anti-slavery activist Sarah Mapps Douglass., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022.
Date: [October, 1841]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.52]

Title: [Rose with open scroll]
Description: Album page containing an incomplete drawing of a spray of red rose and three rose buds behind a blank open scroll. The stems of the flowers are depicted with thorns. Image possibly corresponds to an 1849 entry written by African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne (1811-1893) about the death of his wife and daughter that began, “Just by the side of this Rose, there grew a Rose-bud perfectly formed and softly tinged with the brightest carmine ….” (verso of p.64-66)., Title supplied by cataloguer., Date estimated from span of dates of dated entries within album., Possibly by Amy Matilda Cassey., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022.
Date: [ca. 1845]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.62]

Title: [Floral watercolor]
Description: Album page containing a drawing of a rose bud. The rose bud is depicted on a stem with a number of leaves and thorns., Probably by educator and anti-slavery activist Ada Howell Hinton, daughter of Frederick Augustus Hinton, barber, perfumer, abolitionist, and prominent member of the Philadelphia African American elite community., RVCDC, Description revised in 2022., Access points revised in 2022.
Date: [ca. 1840]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Mary Anne Dickerson album [13860.Q.69]

Title: Fuchsia
Description: Album page containing a drawing of a stem of fuchsia with four flowers copied after a figure in a plate from James Andrews' Lessons in Flower Painting. A Series...(London: Charles Tilt, Fleet Street; John Menzies, Edinburgh; Thomas Wardle, Philadelphia [1836]), pl. 11. (LCP Am 1836 And, 13878.Q). The fuchsia is depicted with the blue petals, red sepals, and pink stamens of the flowers facing down. Image is also composed with the bud of a flower at the end of the stem that has multiple green leaves., Title and date from item., LCP exhibit catalogue: African American Miscellany p.45., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Douglass, was an artist, educator, community activist, and prominent Quaker member of the Philadelphia African American elite community. Mary Anne Dickerson was her pupil.
Creator: Douglass, S. M. (Sarah Mapps), 1806-1882, artist
Date: [July 15, 1846]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Mary Anne Dickerson album [13860.Q.75]

Title: "A token of love from me, to thee"
Description: Album page containing a drawing of a black butterfly on a twig with pink flowers. Shows the butterfly with a black head, thorax, and abdomen and black wings with specks of green and red. The twig also contains several green leaves that fold up, fold down, and/or droop. The stem and branches of the twig are outlined with pink lines., Title from manuscript note., Date inferred from complementary entries in album., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Douglass, was an artist, prominent Quaker member of the Philadelphia African American elite community, educator, and anti-slavery activist.
Creator: Douglass, S. M. (Sarah Mapps), 1806-1882, artist
Date: [ca. 1833]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.2]

Title: "I love a flower!"
Description: Album page containing a drawing of a wild pink rose above eight lines of allegorical verse about the beauty of flowers. Shows the rose with a stem, five green leaves surrounding the petals, and two buds., Title from manuscript verse., Date inferred from complementary entries in album., Contains eight lines of verse: I love a flower! it ever brings/ A warmth of feeling to my heart,/ Unlike those gay and gilded things/ That flatter coldly, coldly part./ But flowers! – Oh they are eloquent/ They speak when lips would still be dumb/ When by the hand of friendship sent,/ Her price interpreters they come., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Douglass, was an artist, prominent Quaker member of the Philadelphia African American elite community, educator, and anti-slavery activist.
Creator: Douglass, S. M. (Sarah Mapps), 1806-1882, artist
Date: [ca. 1833]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.9]

Title: "Forget me not!"
Description: Album page containing a drawing of a stem of blue forget-me-nots above a poem about remembrance. Shows the stem with mutiple flowers and leaves., Title from manuscript verse., Date from item., Probably by Margaretta or Mary Forten, civil rights activists and members of the multiracial Pennsylvania Female Anti-Slavery Society. The women were the daughters of Philadelphia African American entrepreneur and abolitionist James Forten and abolitionist Charlotte Vandine Forten, Contains lines of verse: Forget me not”!—how sweet the token,/ When early hours have faded long,/ And hopes as well as hearts are broken,/ To know they still exist in song!/ Thus, may the exile fondly dream of/ Many a dear and transie[n]t ray/ And watchful memory catch a gleam/ Each colouring of a by-gone day. What tho the wave with ceaseless motion/ Protracts the union of o’er lot:—/ Our Hope’s the rock, which stems Time’s ocean,/ Our Love’s the flower, “Forget Me Not.” Excerpt adapted from poem by William G. Simms Jr., “The ‘Forget Me Not,’” in Early Lays (Charleston, South Carolina: A. E. Miller, 1827)., Manuscript of "Philadelphia" outlined with dots., Manuscript numbers for year "1834" formed with dots., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022.
Date: [1834]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.14]

Title: "Long long be thy heart with your memory fill'd..."
Description: Album page containing a drawing of a white vase of flowers on a square-shaped base and above a poem about memory and remembrance. Flowers depicted are of various kinds and include roses. They are long-stemmed, have leaves, and are in colors of pink, red, yellow, white and blue., Title from manuscript verse., Date inferred from complementary entries in album., Contains four lines of verse: Long, long be my heart with your memory fill’d!—/Like the vase in which roses have once been distill’d—/ You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will;/ But the scent of the roses will hang round it still., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Forten, was a civil rights activist, founding member of the multiracial Pennsylvania Female Anti-Slavery Society, and educator. She was the daughter of Philadelphia African American entrepreneur and abolitionist James Forten and abolitionist Charlotte Vandine Forten.
Creator: Forten, Margaretta, 1806-1875, artist
Date: [ca. 1834]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.16]

Title: [Vase of flowers]
Description: Album page containing a drawing of a white, urn-shaped vase of flowers. A variety of flowers are depicted including a pink rose and white lilies. Leaves also comprise the depicted floral display., Title supplied by cataloguer., Possibly by Amy Matilda Cassey., Date estimated from span of dates of dated entries within album., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022.
Date: [ca. 1845]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.21]

Title: No marvel woman should love flowers
Description: Album page containing a drawing of coupled red and blue flowers above six lines of allegorical verse about unappreciated beauty. Shows the red camellia with fluffy stamens below three, five-petal blue flowers, possibly forget-me-nots. The flowers are also depicted with buds, leaves, and stems. The stem of the red flower contains thorns., Title from manuscript verse., Date inferred from complementary entries in album., Contains six lines of verse: No marvel woman should love flowers, they bear/ So much of fanciful similitude/ To her own history; like herself repaying/ With such sweet interest all the cherishing/ That calls their beauty or their sweetness forth;/ And like her too—dying beneath neglect. Verse from a poem by English writer Letitia Elizabeth Landon that was frequently published, including in the Ladies’ Miscellany (Salem, Mass., April 7, 1830)., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Douglass, was an artist, prominent Quaker member of the Philadelphia African American elite community, educator, and anti-slavery activist.
Creator: Douglass, S. M. (Sarah Mapps), 1806-1882, artist
Date: [ca. 1833]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.24]

Title: [Honeysuckle]
Description: Depicts a stem of honeysuckle., Title supplied by cataloger., Name of artist from manuscript note on verso., Gift of William Woys Weaver, 1995., 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., Douglass, an artist and prominent Quaker member of the Philadelphia African American elite, was best known as an educator and community activist.
Creator: Douglass, S. M. (Sarah Mapps), 1806-1882, artist
Date: [ca. 1845]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Drawings & Watercolors-Douglass [P.9493]

Title: Forget me not
Description: Album page with an embossed border and containing a drawing of forget-me-nots. Shows a sprig of red and blue flowers, and red and blue buds, as well as green leaves. Border is composed of ornament details., Title from album page., Date inferred from complementary entries in album., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Douglass, was an artist, prominent Quaker member of the Philadelphia African American elite community, educator, and anti-slavery activist.
Creator: Douglass, S. M. (Sarah Mapps), 1806-1882, artist
Date: [ca. 1843]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Martina Dickerson album [13859.Q.83]

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