© Copyright 2025 - The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107. TEL (215) 546-3181 FAX (215) 546-5167
For inquiries, please contact our IT Department
- Title
- Columbia trading with all the world
- Description
- Allegorical print depicting "Columbia" (i.e., the United States) as a white woman with brown hair, on the deck of a ship. She holds a caduceus and disperses treasures from a horn of plenty held by "Wisdom," who is portrayed as a white woman attired in a helmet, armor, a skirt, and sandals. Wisdom holds a spear in her left hand and gives the treasures to three male figures representing the country's international trade partners. Figures depicted are: Africa as a Black man attired in a headpiece shaped like an elephant's head and leaning on a tusk of ivory; Asia as a bearded man with a light-brown color skin tone attired in a turban; and South America as a man in a feathered headpiece carrying a bow., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Possibly published in London and not the United States., Revised state. Previous title and imprint faintly visible and illegible below image., Gift of Dr. Mary DeWitt Pettit, 1965., 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
- [ca. 1789-ca. 1800]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Allegories [7737.F]
- Title
- Soldiers memorial. 4th Regiment. Company F. U.S. Col. Troops Mustered into the United States Service at Baltimore, Md., Aug. 4, 1863, by Col. Wm. Birney
- Description
- Stock commemorative certificate with some variations for the African American 4th Regiment, Company F troop and containing a montage of allegorical and battle scenes, patriotic motifs, and soldier vignettes above the printed names of 4th Regiment Privates, Lieutenants, Sergeants, Corporals, and Field and Staff Officers. The allegorical scene depicts the female figure of Columbia, resting upon an American shield and seated next to an American eagle that looks down on a snake it clutches under its claws. Columbia holds her head with her left hand and the "Constitution of the United States" down between her knees in the other. She is portrayed as a white woman with long dark hair, wearing a gold headpiece and white veil, and attired in a dress with a blue bodice, red skirt, and white sleeves and collar. Surrounding the central scene (counterclockwise) are views of white Union soldiers at battle and firing cannons near a harbor and across from Union forts displaying American flags; a departing white Union solder embracing his wife in front of his family, an older woman holding her grandchild, his crying son, and their dog, outside of their home in the countryside as troops march in the distance; white Union cavalry corps charging during battle; the previously depicted white Union soldier returning home, shown in mid stride and holding his cap in the air as his family heads toward him with their arms out; and white Union soldiers, with a cannon, and at battle near a trench. The scene and views within the montage are bordered and framed by portraits of George Washington, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson and pictorial details of American flags, flowers, and filigree., Pictorial details surrounding the names of the soldiers in the lower half of the print include outer columns composed of marble and wood trunks with one unsplit and adorned with the placard "United We Stand" and another split with stakes and adorned with the placard "Divided we fall; inner columns wrapped within the American flag; medallions depicted with red, white, and blue stripes and stars; and images of the American eagle atop an American shield that is adorned with a banner reading "E Pluribus Unum." A. Hoen & Co. printed several slightly variant copies of the Soldiers Memorial in 1866, to commemorate different regiments and with different publishers. In the upper half of the print, the montage imagery remained the same, and in the lower half of the print, the imagery for and near the columns was altered in addition to the printed names of the officers and soldiers and their placement between the columns. The 4th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry was organized in Maryland, July 15-September 1, 1863. The African American unit saw action in Virginia and North Carolina before being mustered out May 4, 1866 after the designation change to 76th U.S. Colored Troops on April 4, 1864. The Regiment lost nearly 300 officers and enlisted men while in service., Title from item., Name of publisher from publication statement: Published at Baltimore by Jos. L. Kessler., Date inferred from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1863 by Whitney & Anderson in Dist. C. of Md., Purchased with Louise Marshall Kelly Fund.
- Date
- [ca. 1863]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Certificates [P.2022.28.2]
- Title
- [Glorification of the American Union]
- Description
- Allegorical print glorifying life and liberty in post-Civil War America depicting the figure Columbia, depicted as a white woman, atop a tall pyramid-shaped pedestal. Flanked by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the latter holding the "Proclamation of Emancipation," she raises her hand toward emancipated enslaved men and women to her right who acknowledge her with raised shackled hands, a knelt position, and a tipped hat. Newly arrived European immigrants are gathered to her left. Abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher stands among the enslaved men, women, and children who have been emancipated, and revolutionary and diplomat Carl Schurz stands before the immigrants. The freed persons embrace each other, break free from shackles, and brandish instruments of free labor as behind them the Capitol, a large American flag, and apparitions of colonial soldiers stand vigil. The immigrants, depicted in their native attire, look to Schurz as they carry their belongings ashore. More ships continue to arrive in the background., Title from copy print at the Calvert Gallery, Washington, D.C., Printer's proof., Manuscript note on recto: Aun myn goeden arrend J. Bollens; J. B. Michiels., After a painting by Belgian historical painter Ferdinand Willem Pauwels, exhibited in 1867 at the Kunstschule in Weimar and possibly at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia under the title, "The New Republic.", See Hugh Honour's The Image of the Black in western art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989) Part 2, Vol. IV, p.248-249., Purchase 1999., 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.
- Creator
- Michiels, Jean-Baptiste P., 1821-1890, engraver
- Date
- [ca. 1873]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC-Emancipation [P.9672]

