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Title: Life in New York
Description: Collection of social caricatures lampooning the pretensions of early 19th century middle-class African American New Yorkers. Influenced by an increased fascination with American culture and a growing racism pending the abolition of slavery in England, the black characters are depicted in outlandish dress with exaggerated manners, and speaking in patois and malapropisms in an inept attempt to mimic white high society. The caricatures focus on courtship and the merchant of a steam press laundry., English reprint of the Anthony Imbert series "Life in New York" originally published around 1830. Although the American series consisted of at least eight prints, the number of prints included in the London series is unknown. LCP holds two of the series. The English prints were published in London in the early 1830s by W.H. Isaacs, H. Isaacs, and G.S. Tregear., Nancy Reynolds Davison's E.W. Clay: American Political Caricaturist of Jacksonian America (PhD. diss., The University of Michigan, 1980), p. 93-97. (LCP Print Room Uz, A423.O)., 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. 1831]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Life in New York (London Set)

Title: Dixon's carburet of iron stove polish
Description: Series of trade cards promoting Joseph Dixon Crucible Company's stove polish and depicting a racist caricature of an African American woman nanny at work. Shows the nanny smiling, holding, and scrubbing an unclothed white girl, who is coated in black stove polish along her right side. The long, brown haired girl wears a red headband and is partially covered by a white cloth draped around by the nanny. The nanny uses a scrub brush under the right arm of the girl. The girl stands, her right leg raised, upon a table covered with a yellow tablecloth and stained by the polish. She looks down and touches the nanny's face with her right hand. She places her left hand over the woman's hand on her left side. The nanny is attired in a white head kerchief with red polka dots; a yellow short-sleeved shirt with red stripes; and a blue skirt. On the table is a plate; a brush; and boxes labeled Dixon's Stove Polish. Image also includes, in the left background, a stove with a steaming copper kettle and a partial view of a stove pipe and checkered flooring. The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company, established by Joseph Dixon in Salem, Mass. in 1827, produced graphite pencils, crucibles and stove polish, and relocated to Jersey City, N.J. in 1847. In 1868, the firm name changed from Joseph Dixon & Co. to the Jos. Dixon Crucible Co. In 1870 the firm won a trademark case against a Philadelphia competitor selling J.C. Dixon Stove Polish., Title from item, Printers and engravers include Major & Knapp Engraving, Manufacturing & Lithographic Co. (New York) and A. Gast & Co. (New York and St. Louis)., Advertising text printed on verso: Advertising text printed on verso: Established 1827. Dixon's stove polish; over fifty years in the market. Neat; quick; brilliant, and lasting. No dust. No odor. Nothing will make a stove so bright and cheerful for so long a time as the Dixon stove polish. It is by far the cheapest in use, in the long run. Buy it. Try it. Take no other. Pressed into a neat quarter-pound packet, absolutely free of adulteration. Six millions sold in 1880. Jos. Dixon Crucible Co., Jersey City, N.J., Gift of Emily Phillips, 1883. Purchase 1998., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Digitized.
Date: [ca. 1885]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department trade card - Dixon [1975.F.235; P.9577.14; P.9599]

Title: View of the Philadelphia volunteer refreshment saloons
Description: Civil War souvenir print containing six views of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon at the southwest corner of Washington and Swanson Avenues and the Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon at 1009 Ostego Street. Contains a large central view of the exterior of the Union Saloon with troops arriving, entering the dining saloon, and departing on a Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad car as crowds of people flock around them. Other views depict soldiers using the wash basins adjoining the Cooper Shop Saloon; pro-Union flags and Saloon banners; the Union Saloon's outside washing and cooking departments including an African American man carrying a pail of food; and interiors of both saloons where male and female volunteers attend to long tables of food and a large simmering vat on a hearth. Contains an eagle clutching large American flags and a pro-Union banner above the scenes. Situated at the transportation hub between the North and the South, the relief organizations provided hospital care, washing, sleeping, and writing facilities to over 1,000,000 military personnel, sailors, refugees, and freedmen during the war., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to An Act of Congress in the Year 1861 by Job T. Williams in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 806, Print trimmed., Gift of Isadore Lichstein, 1984., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Queen, a Philadelphia lithographer and pioneer chromolithographer known for his attention to detail, served in the Civil War militia from 1862 until 1863, and created several lithographs with Civil War subjects, including views of and contribution certificates for the city's relief institutions.
Creator: Queen, James Fuller, 1820 or 1821-1886, artist
Date: 1861
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **W434 [P.9001.6]

Title: Grigg Block, North Fourth Street, Philadelphia. [graphic] / W.H. Rease, No. 17 1/2 South Fifth Street.
Description: Contains advertisements for six of the depicted businesses below the image., Date from Poulson inscription on recto: Dec. 1848., View of the active business block containing and named after Grigg, Elliot, & Co., the largest and most prosperous publishing firm in the city that was founded by John Grigg in 1823 and purchased by J. B. Lippincott in 1849. Shows the block of buildings (10-20 North Fourth Street) covered in signage and including Barcroft, Beaver & Co., dry good dealers and S. M. Day, wholesale combs, brush and fancy goods trimmings (10); Goff & Peterson, importers and manufacturers of saddlery, carriage, and harness trimmings (12); Grigg, Elliot & Co. (14); C. H. & Geo. Abbott, dealers and importers of hardware and cutlery and C. Ahrenfeldt & Co., importers of toys & fancy goods (16); C. B. Lassell & Co., hats and caps and Charles Wingate, dealer in shoes, boots, and palm leaf hats (18); and Edwin & John Tams, importers and dealers of china, earthernware, and glass (20). Patrons exit and enter the various storefronts; delivery men, including an African American man, haul, load, and remove goods from horse-drawn and push carts; laborers load goods into shop storage cellars and use a pulley to raise a large cask; store clerks inspect and open newly arrived packages on the sidewalk; a horse-drawn dust settling machine passes in the street; and artisans and merchandise are visible in several of the shops' upper floor windows. Partial views of the adjacent buildings and a nearby alley with a laborer and push cart are also visible.
Creator: Rease, W. H., lithographer., creator
Date: [[1848]
Location: http://www.lcpgraphics.org/wainwright/W162.htm, Library Company of Philadelphia Print Dept. **W 162 [P.2077]

Title: Life in New York. "Blakey I say, can't you by the powers of your stame engine..?"
Description: Racist caricature depicting a conversation between a middle-class African American merchant and a working-class Irish man. Depicts the well-dressed man "merchant" of a "Patent Steam" laundry and his well-dressed woman companion being approached by a white Irish man outside the doorway to his “Patent Steam Scouring Establishment. Clothes of all kinds, etc.” He wears a top hat, green waistcoat, a white ruffled shirt and stiff collar, white pants, and black shoes. He holds a walking stick. His companion wears a yellow, wide-brimmed hat adorned with feathers and ribbons, a blue and yellow, long-sleeved dress with lace details, white stockings and slipper shoes. She holds up a monocle toward the Irish man who is in bare feet and attired in worn and torn clothing. He holds a stained and patched waistcoat. The Irish man asks the merchant to "shift" his coat for a new one, as by the appearance of the merchant's coat, he is just the man for whom he has been looking since leaving "Kilarney." The merchant and his companion are "salted" by the notion that they are of the same nature as the "ruffian" and will "larn" him better by telling him to "ply to the office." The African American figures are portrayed with oversized features and their skin tone is depicted in black hand coloring., Title from item., Date inferred from content and name of publisher., Contains several lines of dialogue in dialect and the vernacular below the image: What you mean sir! I’m a merchant, I larn you better! cant you rid dat dere Sign, ply to the Office./Aint it too gusting for a lady of quality to be salted so in Street by Ruffians./Blakey I say! Can’t you by the powers of your Stame Engine Shift me this coat for a new one! I trust by the looks of yours youre the very man I have been looking for since I left Kilarney., Inscribed: Pl. 2., Charles Ingrey was a premier London lithographic printer of the 1830s., LCP AR [Annual Report] 1972 p. 60., 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., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Purchase 1972.
Date: [ca. 1831]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Life in New York (London Set)[8025.F.2]

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