Search results

Title: Mount Vernon, the seat of the late Genl. Washington
Description: View of the first president's Virginia estate showing the residence and grounds near the Potomac River. Shows the house and a white gentleman standing near the entrance. On the grounds, two white women with parasols promenade, an enslaved African American man leads a horse, a white man carries a sickle and a bundle of wheat, and a dog chases another horse. In the left background, a boat sails on the river., Title from item., Date inferred from provenance and publication history., Originally published as a smaller plate in William Birch's Country Seats in the United States of North America (Philadelphia: 1804), this view was revised on a larger plate and reissued as a separate print by Birch in 1812. The popular larger 1812 plate was later republished, probably by John McAllister, around 1860., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of views of Virginia. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Reaccessioned as P.9683.5., 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: Seymour, Samuel, 1796-1823, engraver
Date: [ca. 1860]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Residences - Mt. Vernon [5737.F]

Title: New transfer picture-album offering a collection of fine transfer pictures and the direction how to fix them
Description: Pocket-size volume of decals of vignette maps of French cities, territories, colonies, and provinces during the antebellum period. Decals also include illustrations symbolic of the environment, culture, and economy of the depicted regions. Maps include (Afrique) Ile Bourbon, i.e., Réunion; Department de la Course, i.e., Corsica; Department de la Seine, i.e., Paris; Amerique Guadeloupe; Nle Caledonie/Iles de la Societe, i.e., New Caledonia/Society Islands; Algerie; (Amerique) La Martinique; (Afrique) Mayotte, Nossi-Be, St. Marie/Senegal; and Algerie (Afrique) Prov. De. D’Oran, i.e., Oran Province. Illustrations depict ethnic stereotypes and racist caricatures showing Africans, including an enslaved man from Ile Bourbon and Algerians; a Guadeloupean white plantation owner; a Corsican woman; sacks, crates, and barrels of foods and spices, including cacao, coffee, canella, cotton, sugar, indigo, and nutmeg; and native flora and fauna, including trees, grasses, a turtle, bird, elephant, and alligator. Vignettes also show a portrait of Napoleon; Paris architecture; ships and boats; and huts and a tent., Title from item., Date inferred from era of production of miniature decals and cover design., Front cover illustrated with a clown figure holding a trumpet to his mouth in one hand and tugging his hat with the other., Printed on back cover: Directions for fixing transfers. Take the picture, put it into luke-warm water for a quarter of a minute, pres the picture-side firmly on the object you wish to decorate, and draw gently the paper away. the fixed picture can be varnished, which makas [sic] it finer and secure against water and dust., Purchased with the Davida T. Deutsch African American History Fund., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Date: [ca. 1880]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department ephemera - Misc. [P.2014.17.3]

Title: [Arabic fragment, a West African gris-gris]
Description: Contains a line of text from the Koran written in a courtly hand by an enslaved, educated, black Islamic priest. Translated text reads: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful Say: He is Allah, the One and Only! Allah, the Eternal, Absolut; He begetteth not nor is He begotten. And there is none like unto Him., Title from LCP exhibition catalogue: Pierre Eugene Du Simitière. His American Museum 200 years after, entry #5:21., Date from manuscript note on recto: the above was written in my presence by a negro m[a]nding[o] at Leoganne in January 1773 DuSimitiere., Du Simitière, a Swiss-born historian, antiquarian, and artist, traveled and documented North America and the West Indies from the 1750s to 1770s. He settled in Philadelphia in 1774, and in 1782 opened the American Museum, which contained his collected antiquities., Purchase at auction, Du Simitière's American Museum, March 10, 1785., Explanation of translation in Du Simitière research file, Graphic Arts Department., 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: [Léogâne, Haiti]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Du Simitière Collection [961.F.5d]

Title: These are to certify, that [blank] is a member of the New-Jersey Society, for promoting the abolition of slavery. [blank] Presdt. Secy. [blank]
Description: Abolition society certificate depicting a white, Federal-era man pointing toward a chained, kneeling enslaved man who declares, "Am I not a Man and brother!" In the left, the enslaved man, attired in a white loincloth and with chains binding his hands to his feet, kneels down on his right knee upon a marble pedestal and clasps his hands together. In the right, the white man, attired in a white cravat, a waistcoat, a jacket, breeches, and black shoes, stands and holds in his left hand a Bible opened to Isaiah 61:1 atop the marble altar, which is inscribed with the verse: "He came to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Heavenly beams shine down upon them through an opening in the clouds. The New Jersey abolition society was established in 1793., Unused certificate., Title from item., Illustration of a kneeling male slave on the certificate is a variant of the image popularized by Josiah Wedgwood. Formed in 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade designed and adopted as its seal the image of a kneeling African male slave asking, "Am I not a man and a brother?" That same year, Wedgwood, a ceramics manufacturer and member of the Committee, issued the image as a medallion, which was distributed in America. The image became a popular anti-slavery icon and was soon widely reproduced on artifacts and in print in the United States and in Britain. During the 1820s, a female counterpart with the motto, "Am I not a woman and a sister?" was created by British abolitionists and quickly embraced in the United States, particularly among women abolitionists., Accessioned 1968., 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. 1800]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC-Certificates [7762.F]

Title: First meeting of Uncle Tom and Eva
Description: Print of a scene from Stowe's popular, anti-slavery novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," originally published in 1851. Depicts "Uncle Tom," an enslaved African American man, and Evangeline St. Claire, the white daughter of a Louisiana enslaver, meeting on the steamship that is taking him to auction. On the deck, Tom, barefoot and attired in a red shirt, blue pants, and with shackles on his wrists, sits on a crate with a Bible in his lap. He talks to an attentive Eva, with her brown hair in ringlets and attired in a pink dress and black shoes, who is seated on a bundle of goods. Three bare-chested, enslaved African American men stand in the background behind a bundle and look on., Title from item., Purchase 1970., 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.
Creator: Strong, Thomas W., lithographer
Date: [ca. 1853]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Fictional characters [7869.F]

Title: Uncle Tom and Little Eva
Description: Print of a scene from Stowe's popular, anti-slavery novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," originally published in 1851. Depicts Little Eva, the "angelic" young, white daughter of a Louisiana enslaver informing "Uncle Tom," the African American man enslaved by her father, of her impending death. Eva, with her blonde hair in ringlets and attired in a white dress, white stockings, and black shoes, points to heaven with her right hand and to the Bible in her lap with her left. She sits next to a barefooted, slightly hunched over Tom, attired in a red shirt with an open neck and blue pants, on a grassy mound in the woods. Also includes a cabin visible in the left background., Title from item., The Kellogg's firm, brothers Edmund Burke and Elijah Chapman, was a prolific New England lithographic firm that nearly rivaled Currier & Ives in the production of popular prints., Reaccessioned as P.9179.10., Purchase 1969., 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.
Date: [ca. 1853]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC-Fictional Characters [7807.F]

Title: [Proof vignette of Southern planter and scenes from the South]
Description: Proof vignette that was probably to be incorporated into a larger print. Shows a white man plantation owner, seated on a bale of cotton, surrounded by Southern agricultural iconography, including a twig of cotton, a mill building, and Black men laborers, possibly enslaved men, picking in a cotton field near a docked side-wheel paddle steamer. A horse-drawn wagon by a line of people is visible at the dock. Contains registration marks and a color mark., Title supplied by cataloger., Gift of David Doret, 2007., 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. 1860 - ca. 1870]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC-Allegories [P.2007.39.25]

Title: Cinque The chief of the Amistad captives
Description: Bust portrait of the enslaved leader after a painting by New Haven, Connecticut artist, Nathaniel Jocelyn, engraved by Philadelphia artist and Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society member, John Sartain, to raise funds for the enslaved ship mutineers' defense before the Supreme Court. Sartain reproduced the painting, commissioned in 1841 by Philadelphia African American abolitionist and Amistad Committee defense fund member, Robert Purvis, following the refusal of the Artist Fund Society to display the original at the society's 1841 exhibit. Depicts the West African, attired in a toga, walking cane in hand, slightly facing left, in front of a background of African landscape., Title from printed signature of sitter below image., Date inferred from content., Printed on recto: fac simile of the original autograph., Original painting in the collections of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, New Haven, CT., LCP exhibition catalogue: Negro history, p. 34., LCP exhibition catalogue: Made in America, #61., See Ann Katherine Martinez's The Life and career of John Sartain (1808-1897): A nineteenth century Philadelphia printmaker (Ph.D dissertation, The George Washington University, 1986), p. 75-78., See Hugh Honour's The Image of the Black in western Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), part 2, vol. IV, p. 159-161., See Katherine Martinez's and Page Talbott's, eds. The Sartain family legacy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), p. 66-67., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of engravings. McAllister collection, gift, 1886., 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.
Creator: Sartain, John, 1808-1897, engraver
Date: [ca. 1841]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Portrait prints-C [5306.F.35]

Title: Cinque The chief of the Amistad captives
Description: Bust portrait of the enslaved leader after a painting by New Haven, Connecticut artist, Nathaniel Jocelyn, engraved by Philadelphia artist and Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society member, John Sartain, to raise funds for the enslaved ship mutineers' defense before the Supreme Court. Sartain reproduced the painting, commissioned in 1841 by Philadelphia African American abolitionist and Amistad Committee defense fund member, Robert Purvis, following the refusal of the Artist Fund Society to display the original at the society's 1841 exhibit. Depicts the West African, attired in a toga, walking cane in hand, slightly facing left, in front of a background of African landscape., Title from printed signature of sitter below image., Date inferred from content., Printed on recto: fac simile of the original autograph., Original painting in the collections of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, New Haven, CT., LCP exhibition catalogue: Negro history, p. 34., LCP exhibition catalogue: Made in America, #61., See Ann Katherine Martinez's The Life and career of John Sartain (1808-1897): A nineteenth century Philadelphia printmaker (Ph.D dissertation, The George Washington University, 1986), p. 75-78., See Hugh Honour's The Image of the Black in western Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), part 2, vol. IV, p. 159-161., See Katherine Martinez's and Page Talbott's, eds. The Sartain family legacy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), p. 66-67., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of engravings. McAllister collection, gift, 1886., 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.
Creator: Sartain, John, 1808-1897, engraver
Date: [ca. 1841]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Portrait prints-C [5306.F.35]

Title: Centennial commemoration at Philadelphia [ticket] Three millions of colonists on a strip by the sea. Now forty millions of freemen ruling from ocean to ocean
Description: Ticket to the "Grand Mass Demonstration in favor of the Centennial Commemoration of American Independence, February 22, 1873" at the Academy of Music containing scenes contrasting life in Philadelphia in 1776 with life in 1876. Scene of 1776 shows white men colonists, including one attired as a backwoodsman, in front of a log cabin and standing near a barefooted, enslaved African American man, attired in torn and worn clothing, sitting on a pile of sticks. Scene of 1876 shows a white man soldier talking to a white man artisan near an African American man laborer seated next to an anvil and machinery gears. Cityscape is visible in the background. Also includes an eagle holding an American flag crest adorned with a portrait of Washington. Contains text printed on the verso soliciting subscriptions to make the Centennial a success as well as to make Pennsylvania the representative to the world of the "power of the Republic.", Title from item., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of Centennial and Columbian Exposition views. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., 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.
Date: [1873]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Ph Pr -8 x 10 - Events [5758.F.26c]

Title: Primrose The celebrated piebald boy, a native of the West Indies; publicly [sic] shewn in London 1789
Description: Full-length portrait of John Richardson Primrose Bobey, a young Black man with the pigmentation disorder vitiligo, born enslaved in Jamaica, and inspected and exhibited as a specimen of science throughout England. Shows the young man standing on a shoreline. He stands with palm trees in the distance. He is dressed in a loincloth knotted on his left hip and adorned with tassels. White patches are visible on his legs, torso, and down the center of his head. In his right hand, he holds up a captioned portrait broadside of himself as a boy and points to it with his left hand bent at the elbow and from in front of his waist. The broadside depicts the very young Bobey with primarily white skin above text reading "A Child born at Gros Islet, in the Island of St. Lucia, of Black Parents, Taken from a model of the infant colored from nature," and at the museum of T. Pole, Surgeon, Grace Church, in London." In adulthood in London, Bobey advocated for his freedom from enslavement and was a proprietor of a menagerie and a member of several societies, including the Free Masons., Title from item., Manuscript note on recto: Presented T. Pole Surgeon, London, to the Library of Philadelphia., Publication information inferred from broadside illustrated in image and address of London publishers Wm. Darton & Jos. Harvey., Noted in LCP Minutes, v. 3, p. 230-231., Biographies of sitter in Karl Pearson, A monograph on Albinism (London: Cambridge University Press, 1911-1913) and William Granger, The new wonderful museum, and extraordinary magazine: ... (London: Printed for R.S. Kirby, 1804), v. 2, p. 711-714., Pole, a Philadelphia-born Quaker physician, was also an artist who illustrated his own text "An Anatomical Instructor, an Illustration of the Modern and Most Approved Methods of Preparing and Preserving the Different Parts of the Human Body, and of Quadrupeds, by Injection, Corrosion, ... (London, 1790)., 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., Descripton revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Gift of Thomas Pole, 1790., RVCDC
Date: [ca. 1789]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | PRINT. *portrait prints - Primrose [901.F.27]

Title: London Coffee House
Description: Exterior view of the coffee house and merchants' exchange at the southwest corner of Front and Market streets in Philadelphia during the colonial era. An auction of enslaved African American people occurs outside the coffee house and pedestrians traverse the sidewalks and street, including an African American woman carrying a basket on her head. Views of the adjacent printing house and book store of "Pennsylvania Journal" publisher, William Bradford, are visible. Erected in 1702 and established as a coffee house in 1754 by Bradford, the site was a public center for social and economic activities during the later 18th century, including auctions of enslaved people. Razed in 1883., Title from item., Plate published in John F. Watson's Annals of Philadelphia...(Philadelphia: E.L. Carey & A. Hart, 1830), opp. p. 339., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 442, Gift of James Rush., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator: Breton, William L., lithographer
Date: [1830]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department BW - Hotels, Inns, Taverns [9245.Q.20], http://www.lcpimages.org/afro-americana/F-London.htm

Title: The battle at Bunker's Hill near Boston, June 17th, 1775
Description: Commemorative print after John Trumbull's historical painting based on his eyewitness account of the battle while serving as a commissioned officer during the American Revolution. Dramatically depicts the scene of American Major General Joseph Warren's death proceeding the Americans' retreat from the hill. Amidst a melee of activity, Warren lays dying in the arms of an American militiaman who fends off a bayonet pointed down over his body by an English soldier. British Major John Small restrains the bayonet of his soldier as Americans Captain Thomas Gardner, holding a musket, Major Andrew McClary, and Colonel William Prescott stand guard over their fallen compatriot. Behind Small, British Major John Pitcairn, mortally wounded, is held up by Lieutenant William Pitcairn and to the far right American Lieutenant Thomas Grovesnor stands en guarde shielding an armed African American man usually identified as Peter Salem, credited as the fatal shooter of Pitcairn, but more likely Grovesnor's enslaved man. British Generals William Howe, Henry Clinton, and Lieutenant Francis Lord Rawdon, flag in hand, continue the charge in the background. Other American soldiers involved in the battle include: Colonel Israel Putnam who gallantly leads the retreat; Rev. Samuel McClintock; Major Willard Moore, as well as an African American soldier, possibly Peter Salem. American Lieutenant Colonel Moses Parker and British Lieutenant Colonel Sir Robert Abercromby lay dying., Title from item., Theodore Sizer's The works of Colonel John Trumbull (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 95., The Library of Congress' An album of American battle art, 1755-1918. (Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Printing Office, 1947), 27-30., See Elisa Tamarkin, Anglophilia: deference, devotion, and antebellum America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 137-8 for Peter Salem misidentification., 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., Muller, was a renown German painter, engraver, and professor, commissioned, following the refusal of the English artist community, to engrave Trumbull's historic painting. Muller completed the painting in 1786 at his mentor Benjamin West's London studio.
Creator: Müller, Johann Gotthard, 1747-1830, engraver
Date: 1798
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - American Revolution [1142.F.4]

Title: Turning the tables on the overseer
Description: Abolitionist print depicting a group of enslaved African American people about to whip their white plantation overseer, who has been bound to a tree on the plantation grounds. Before the plantation overseer, the African American man holds the whip and pulls up his sleeve as the enslaved man next to him takes of his hat in a mock gesture of respect. Smiling men, women, and children of all ages stand, sit, and lean on a fence, surrounding the overseer in anticipation of his whipping., Title from item., First published in New York Illustrated news, November 28, 1863 (LCP **Per D 8.5, 1863). Later published as a loose print by the African American press, Robert and Thomas Hamilton, possibly the first Black press to publish separate prints., LCP exhibition catalogue: African American Miscellany p. 38., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of Civil War caricatures and photographs. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., 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.
Date: [1863]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC-Slavery [5780.F]

Title: Washington crossing the Delaware. Evening previous to the Battle of Trenton Decr. 25th 1776 The annual greeting of the carriers of the Philadelphia Inquirer to their patrons for 1861
Description: Commemorative print after Thomas Sully's 1819 painting "Washington's Passage of the Delaware." Depicts General Washington astride his horse atop the barren bank of the Delaware River. He tips his hat and acknowledges his troops below, who cross the river by barge. To the left of Washington, white men soldiers move a cannon. In the right are several soldiers on horseback, including Prince Whipple, enslaved African American man and bodyguard to Washington Aide, General William Whipple., Title based on item., Original painting in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., For a description of the original painting, see the broadside Passage of the Delaware by Thomas Sully. (LCP sm #Am 1820 Sul, 6658.F)., Accessioned 1987., 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: Gimbrede, Joseph Napoleon, 1820-, engraver
Date: [1861]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - American Revolution [P.9179.9]

Title: Journey of a slave from plantation to the battlefield
Description: Collection of twelve titled album (carte-de-visite size) cards depicting the evolution of the life of an African American man from enslavement to a Union soldier. "In the Cotton field" and "The Christmas Week" show his life on the plantation from which he is sold and separated from his family in "The Sale" and "The Parting: 'Buy us too'." His new enslaver whips him in "The Lash," for which he then retaliates in "Blow for Blow." He hides "In the Swamp" and is finally "Free!" to become a Union soldier and "Stand up a Man" to fight in the battlefield to "Make Way for Liberty!" He is struck down in "Victory!" for Liberty, depicted as a white woman, who states as she mourns over his body, "He Died for Me!", Title from series title., Publication information inferred from copyright statement: Entered according to the act of the year 1863 by William A. Stephens in the Clerks' Office of the Dist. Court of the U.S. for the E. Dist. of Pa., Attributed to James Fuller Queen after Henry Louis Stephens., Henry Louis Stephens was a native Philadelphia caricaturist, book, and magazine illustrator who worked in New York in the mid-19th century for the periodical "Frank Leslie's." His brother William Allen Stephens served as his business manager., Described in Gathering history: The Marian S. Carson Collection of Americana. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1999), p. 26., Original wrapper for the card set held in the collections of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [LOT 5174], Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of humorous caricatures and photographs. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Copyright by William A. Stephens, 1120 Girard Avenue, Philadelphia., Description revised 2023., Access points revised 2023., 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.
Creator: Queen, James Fuller, 1820 or 21-1886, artist
Date: 1863
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Henry Louis Stephens Collection [(5)5780.F.56m-p; (5)5780.F.57a-h]

Title: All slaves were made freemen. By Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, January 1st, 1863. Come, then, able-bodied colored men, to the nearest United States camp, and fight for the stars and stripes
Description: Civil War recruitment print targeting African Americans by evoking the freedoms granted by the Emancipation Proclamation. Depicts a montage of symbolic scenes centered around an African American Union soldier triumphantly holding up a sword and an American flag with the banner "Freedom to the Slave." He stands near broken shackles upon a tri-color flag adorned with a coiled snake. The flag is tugged upon by one of three joyous African Americans freed from enslavement by an African American soldier. Other scenes depict an African American man reading a newspaper on a rocking chair near a plow and child, African American children entering a "Public School" near a church, and a regiment of "U.S. Colored Troops" marching across a battlefield strewn with dead bodies., Title printed on verso., Text of the "Original Version of the John Brown Song" by H.H. Brownell printed on verso., Described in LCP exhibition catalogue: Negro History, entry #139., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of Civil War miscellany [(2)5786.F.107b]. Transferred from #Am 1863 All (2)5786.F.107b. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886. Accessioned 1987 [P.9179.44], 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: [1863]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Emancipation [P.9179.44; (2)5786.F.107b]

Title: View of the Capitol of the United States after the conflagration in 1814
Description: Abolitionist allegorical book illustration juxtaposing a coffle of enslaved Black men and boys standing before the ruins of "a monument to liberty," the United States Capitol, following the British occupation of the city during the War of 1812. Author suggests that the destruction of the Capitol was a sign of divine displeasure to promote the abolition of slavery. In the foreground, two white men enslavers lead shackled men and boys pass the ruin. Two allegorical white female figures, one of Liberty, hover in the clouds above. Enslaved people were traded in Washington, D.C. and used in the reconstruction of the Capitol., Title from item., Frontispiece from Jessey Torrey, Jr.'s, A Portraiture of domestic slavery in the United States (1817)., Torrey was a Philadelphia physician, abolitionist, and author of tracts on morals and the diffusion of knowledge., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of views of the District of Columbia. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., 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.
Creator: Lawson, Alexander, 1773-1846, engraver
Date: 1817
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Government Buildings - Washington, D.C. [5740.F.9b], http://www.lcpimages.org/afro-americana/F181.htm

Title: In commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of American independence
Description: Elaborate Centennial Exhibition commemorative print depicting an arched monument containing a central full-length portrait of George Washington surrounded by vignettes; allegorical figures; and religious quotes by the first president. Washington is depicted mounted on his horse. Arch is adorned with the names of the 38 states and is flanked by columns containing views representing the industries of the North, East, South, and West. Views show a white man laborer of the North chopping a tree at a waterfront, white women loom workers of the East, an overseer on horseback watching an enslaved African American man picking cotton in the South, and a white man farmer reaping his harvest with a horse-drawn plow in the West. Columns also contain allegorical figures to represent the years 1776 and 1876. Justice and Independence (depicted as white women and holding the Declaration), and a prostrate British soldier represent the year 1776 and Peace and Liberty (depicted as white woman and holding a "Ballot"), and a seated enslaved African American man free from his shackles represent the year 1876. Monument also contains views of Independence Hall and Memorial Hall (Centennial Exhibition), the scene showing the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and allegorical figures and emblems symbolizing the classical and industrial arts. Other pictorial elements depict the all-seeing eye; American eagle, shield, and flag; vignettes showing Washington praying, and accepting the sword of surrender from Lord Cornwallis during the American Revolution; and vignette views with dimensions of Centennial Exhibition buildings. Buildings include the Art Gallery, Main Building, Agricultural Hall, Machinery Hall, and Horticultural Hall. The centennial of the United States was celebrated through an international exhibition of industry, agriculture, and art in West Fairmount Park, Philadelphia., Not in Wainwright., Improvement copyrighted 1877 The Presbyterian Philadelphia, Pa., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 370, Gift of David Doret, 2007., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Date: 1876, 1877
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **BW - Centennial [P.2007.28.7]

Title: The Washington family
Description: Group portrait of George Washington, his wife Martha, and his two step-grandchildren gathered around a cloth-covered table. A seated George Washington, attired in civilian clothing, rests one arm on the table and the other on the shoulder of his step-grandson and namesake who stands next to a globe, which shows "America." His step-granddaughter, Nelly, stands next to a seated Martha on the other side of the table. Both are pointing at "North America, United States" on a large map unfurled on the table. William Lee, an African American man enslaved by Washington who worked as his valet including during the Revolutionary War, stands in the right background. He is attired in a white cravat and a black jacket and tucks his left hand into his jacket. A curtain is draped open near a column revealing a waterscape scene in the background., Title from item., Names of sitters printed in margin below image., Purchased with Davida T. Deutsch Women's History Fund, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator: Currier & Ives
Date: 1873
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Washington [P.2013.23]

Title: Mount Vernon--Washington's Residence
Description: Puzzle showing the eastern facade of the mansion and grounds overlooking the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia owned by George Washington. White men and women promenade, white children play with a dog, cattle graze, and a white man handler walks a horse on the landscaped grounds in the foreground. George Washington, Martha Washington, and a white woman sit on the porch. An enslaved African American man servant, attired in a white collared shirt, a black jacket with tails, and black pants, stands to the left of them. The estate, originally granted to Washington's great-grandfather John Washington in 1674, was inherited by George in 1761 and purchased by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association in 1858., One of four puzzles, stored in two pieces, housed in clamshell box., Purchase 1978., 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.
Date: [ca. 1858]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) - Four Lithographic Puzzles [8418.F.2]

Title: Offering of bells to be cast into cannon
Description: Partisan genre scene depicting a Southern white man pastor and members of his congregation presenting church bells to a Confederate officer at the hearth of an enslaved African American man blacksmith. In the left, the officer holds his cap in his hand as the blacksmith, attired in a long apron (doffed cap as well), bends over to grab one of two bells near his feet. Candlesticks and andirons lie in a pile under the hearth and to the left of the officer. In the right, congregants stand behind the pastor attired in robes and a wide-brimmed hat, and include a woman attired in a fancy dress and cape, men in suits and top hats, and a man dressed in yeoman's clothing. In the background, an enslaved African American man carries a cylinder-shaped object over his shoulder and church towers are visible. In 1862, Confederate General P.T. Beauregard called for bells to be given to the Confederacy to be melted into cannon. Several churches in North Carolina donated them., Inscribed upper left corner: 19., Inscribed in lower left corner: AJV; FBM., Issued as plate 19 in Sketches from the Civil War in North America (London [i.e., Baltimore]: [the author], 1863-1864), a series of pro-Confederacy cartoons drawn and published by Baltimore cartoonist Adalbert John Volck under the pseudonym V. Blada. The "first issue" of 10 prints (numbered 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 21, 24), with imprint "London, 1863" were printed as etchings. The remaining 20 prints (numbered 4, 8, 9-11, 14, 17-20, 23, 25-27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 40, 45) headed "Second and third issues of V. Blada's war sketches" and dated "London, July 30, 1864" were printed as lithographs., Title and publication information from series at Brown University Library., Research file about artist available at repository., Accessioned 1935., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator: Volck, Adalbert John, 1828-1912, artist
Date: [1864]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Volck - Sketches - Volck 19 [2990.F.20]

Title: Smuggling medicines into the South
Description: Partisan genre scene depicting the unloading of a rowboat with medical supplies along a shoreline near dense thickets of trees. In the center, a white man Confederate military officer keeps the boat moored through a rope in his hand. He looks back toward a white man, possibly a doctor, climbing down from a tree. An enslaved African American man (his back to the viewer), ankle deep in the water, holds a wooden pole on the shore as a lever as a white man in civilian clothes rolls a barrel toward a Confederate soldier (his back to the viewer). The soldier places sacks on the back of a mule. A sack, crate, and barrel lie near the mule. Volck was active in smuggling medicines into the South across the Potomac River in response to the Union's ban of the passage of medical supplies to the South., Inscribed upper left corner: 18., Issued as plate 18 in Sketches from the Civil War in North America (London [i.e., Baltimore]: [the author], 1863-1864), a series of pro-Confederacy cartoons drawn and published by Baltimore cartoonist Adalbert John Volck under the pseudonym V. Blada. The "first issue" of 10 prints (numbered 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 21, 24), with imprint "London, 1863" were printed as etchings. The remaining 20 prints (numbered 4, 8, 9-11, 14, 17-20, 23, 25-27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 40, 45) headed "Second and third issues of V. Blada's war sketches" and dated "London, July 30, 1864" were printed as lithographs., Title and publication information from series at Brown University Library., Research file about artist available at repository., Accessioned 1935., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator: Volck, Adalbert John, 1828-1912, artist
Date: [1864]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Volck - Sketches - Volck 18 [2990.F.21]

Title: Here is a picture of some slaves at work Reward of merit. This may certify that [Mr. George Snow] by diligence and attention to study, merits the approbation of [his] friends and teacher
Description: School token illustrated with a scene showing enslaved men and women working in a tobacco field near a shack. In the right, three younger enslaved men hoe and gather a bundle of tobacco. In the left, an enslaved man stands and converses with an enslaved woman, seated on a bale. They each hold the handles of farming implements. A large sack and crate rest to the left of the bale. In the left background, an enslaved woman stands in the doorway of the shack. Wooden buildings and harvested fields are visible in the right background. The young men wear short sleeves and shorts. The women wear dresses and the man wears short sleeves and pants. Rewards of merit were popular with teachers during the 19th century and were given to reward students who had excelled in their school work. The addition of pictures made a reward of merit card a more special acknowledgement of a pupil’s success., Title from illustration caption and text printed on verso., Date inferred from content of image and graphic medium., Verso contains decorative border surrounding the text., Purchased with the Davida T. Deutsch African American History Fund., Illustrated in Patricia Fenn and Alfred Malpa, Rewards of merit (Charlottesville, Va.: Ephemera Society of America, 1994), 118., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., RVCDC
Date: [ca. 1830- ca. 1850]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Rewards of Merit - Slaves [118555.D]

Title: Washington birthday greetings
Description: Postcard containing an interpretation of Christian Schussele's 1864 painting "Washington and his Family" that was also issued as an engraving. Shows a domestic family group portrait with George and Martha Washington seated at a table, near which their step grand-children Nelly and William stand. A map rests on the table, and Washington holds a book in his lap. In the background, William Lee, an African American man enslaved by Washington who worked as his valet including during the Revolutionary War, enters the room holding a note on a tray. In the right foreground, Washington's overcoat and sword rest on a chair., Date inferred from postmark: Mass., Dec. 1910., Addressed in manuscript to: Mr. Ralph Osgood, Oak St., Springfield, Mass., Inscribed in lower left corner on verso: Cores. from Ethel., Contains cancelled one-cent stamp printed in green ink and depicting Benjamin Franklin in profile., Divided back., Gift of John Serembus, 2013., Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022.
Date: [ca. 1910]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department LCP postcards - Non-Pennsylvania [P.2013.66]

Title: [George Washington crossing the Delaware]
Description: Commemorative print after the 1851 painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze depicting General Washington's famous campaign across the icy Delaware River above Trenton on Christmas Eve 1776. A stoic Washington stands at the head of the lead rowboat surrounded by several of his dedicated men, including a white man soldier holding the American flag and the African American oarsman Prince Whipple, enslaved man and bodyguard to Washington Aide, General William Whipple. In the background, boats with the remaining troops and horses are visible., Copyrighted by M. Knoedler., Proof copy., Title from original painting in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York., Gift of Anthony N.B. Garvan, 1981., 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.
Creator: Giradet, Paul, engraver
Date: [ca. 1853]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - American Revolution [P.8646.1]

Title: Marion crossing the Pedee Engraved from the original picture in the possession of the American Art-Union
Description: Historical print showing Brig. Gen. Francis Marion, known as the Swamp Fox, during the American Revolution and commanding a raft down the river in between one of his guerilla attacks in South Carolina. Marion, wrapped in a cloak, on horseback is surrounded by his band of volunteer soldiers, horses carrying light equipment, and a few dogs on the raft. The men include Marion's enslaved man Oscar Marion holding the reigns of his horse and another African American man rowing the raft with an oar. A few of the soldiers hold the reigns of horses swimming through the river. A second raft is visible in the background., Title from item., After an 1850 painting by William Tylee Ranney in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX., One of six prints issued in 1851 for the members of the American Art-Union in New York., Trimmed., Gift of David Doret, 2006., 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.
Creator: Burt, Charles Kennedy, 1823-1892, engraver
Date: [1851]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - American Revolution [P.2006.28.22]

Title: "Father, I cannot tell a lie: I cut the tree"
Description: Genre scene of the fictitious moment when the young George Washington confesses to his father, Augustine, a plantation owner, that he cut a cherry tree on their Virginia plantation. Depicts Washington's father holding his son's hand and comforting him. George looks up at his father and points his left hand towards the cut tree in the right. On the ground is an ax and an upturned hat. In the background, an enslaved African American man plows the pasture with a team of oxen, and an enslaved African American man and woman couple stands near the gate of a cottage, probably their dwelling., Title from date., Date based on the active dates of engraver., Gift of Mrs. Francis P. Garvan, 1978., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator: McRae, John, engraver
Date: [1860]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - Washington [8384.F.16]

Title: The game of secession or sketches of the rebellion Our army and navy for ever!
Description: Gameboard containing a serpent-like figure comprised of 135 spaces surrounded by captioned vignettes also used on Civil War envelopes. Pro-Union designs advance the player and anti-secession designs retard the player. Vignettes depict portraits of prominent war figures; views of forts, soldiers, and preparations for battle; Union and Confederate flags; allegorical figures; and satiric and racist depictions of Confederates. Includes President Abraham Lincoln; Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Gen. Winfield Scott, Maj-Gen. George B. McClellan, Comm. S.F. Dupont, Confederate Gen. Beauregard; bombardment of Fort Sumter; Philadelphia Navy Yard; liberty; Columbia; and Confederate soldiers on retreat; riding a enslaved African American man, and protected by bales of cotton. "Directions" to play the game printed in the lower left corner. Flags and shields adorn the borders., Title from item., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of materials related to George McClellan. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Reproduced in Erika Piola, "For the millions: Civil War stationery for women and children in the McAllister Collection at the Library Company of Philadelphia," The Ephemera journal 13 (2010), [39]., 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.
Date: [1862]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - Games [5793.F.44]

Title: Reading the Emancipation Proclamation
Description: Print depicting a white Union soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation to families of enslaved African Americans in a cabin. The families are depicted with anxious and solemn mannerisms. Family members surround the officer near a dining table and hearth. An older boy holds a torch providing the officer with light. The father watches over the soldier's shoulder. Other figures, including a "young woman with two children, the house servant of her [enslaver], not belonging to the cabin but happened to be in on the occasion" pray, cheer, and cling to their mothers. Interior also includes a side of bacon hanging next to a ladder, a drying line with cotton balls handing from it above the hearth, and a cradle. Contains portrait of Abraham Lincoln below the image. The Emancipation Proclamation, effective January 1, 1863, granted African Americans not only their right to freedom but the right to join the Union Army., Title from item., Date from copyright statement., After painting by Henry Walker Herrick exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1865. Exhibited by "possessor" Lucius Stebbins., Publisher and copyright holder Stebbins published complementary pamphlet "Emancipation Proclamation of January 1st, 1864 [sic]" that included "Description of the Engraving." Description: Old man at the right with folded hands, Grand-father; Old lady at the left with cane in hand, Grand-mother; man leaning on ladder, the father; woman with child in her arms, the mother; lad swinging his hat, oldest son; one holding torch, second son; little girl, oldest daughter; infant in the arms of its mother. Young woman with two children, the house servant of her master, not belonging to the cabin but happened to be in on the occasion. Party reading, Union Soldier. The internal view of the Cabin is true to nature. The stone chimney, garret, ladder, side of bacon, rough cradle, piece of sugar cane and cotton balls, &c, all combine to give a correct idea of the slaves' home. Lincoln Financial Foundation copy of pamphlet accessible at Internet Archive., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1993, p. 44., LCP exhibition catalogue: An African American Miscellany p. 22., Purchase 1993., 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., Lucius Stebbins (1810-1901), born in Massachussets, worked in Hartford, Connecticut, in the businesses of map coloring and subscription book publishing (American Publishing Company).
Creator: Watts, James W., -1895, engraver
Date: 1864
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC-Emancipation [P.9429]

Title: Specimen sheet Union, patriotic and humorous designs upon envelopes
Description: Advertisement containing twenty-five examples of Civil War envelope vignettes published by King & Baird. Majority of the vignettes include titles and slogans. Designs depict the American flag; liberty, the American eagle; soldiers (including the martyred Colonel Ellsworth); caricatures of Brigadier General Henry A. Wise (former governor of Virginia), Jefferson Davis, and the Southern gentry; a portrait of Washington; an abolitionist scene showing the whipping of an African American man entitled "The persuasive eloquence of the Sunny South"; and a racist caricature of an African American man on all fours carrying a whip and asking in the vernacular, "Whar's Jeff Davis?" Also contains a description of the envelopes and shipping information, as well as the scale of prices ranging from "25 Assorted Envelopes, (25 kinds)" at 25 cents to 1000 at 5 dollars., Title from item., Text printed on recto: Single copies of this sheet will be mailed free of postage, upon receipt of six cents, by King & Baird, Book and Job Printers, 607 Sansom St., Philadelphia., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of miscellaneous Civil War prints. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886 [5786.F.161a]. Accessioned 2002 [P.2002.45]., 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: King & Baird
Date: [ca. 1863]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Civil War [5786.F.161a; P.2002.45]

Title: From the plantation to the Senate
Description: Commemorative print containing portraits of eminent 19th-century African American men above a central cotton plantation scene. In front of the plantation residence by a river, enslaved African American men and women pick and transport baskets of cotton as a well-dressed African American foreman on horseback confers with a man on the dirt road. Flanking the central portrait of "Hon. Frederick Douglass, Champion of Freedom" on a background of tropical flowers, vines, and fruits are: "Hon. Benj. S. Turner of Alabama"; "Rt. Rev. Richard Allen" of Philadelphia, "1st Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church"; "Hon. H.R. Revels of Mississippi"; "Hon. Joseph H. Rainy [sic] of South Carolina"; "Hon. Josiah T. Walls of Florida"; and "Wm. Wells Brown, M.D., Author of the Rising Sun [sic]". Also contains vignettes of romanticized images of African American home life by a river showing African Americans playing instruments and dancing, transporting watermelon by barge, and relaxing outside their home., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyrighted 1883 by Gaylord Watson., Watson was a New York lithographer who specialized in maps., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1974, p. 61., Purchase 1974., 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.
Date: 1883
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - African American Heroes [8091.F.275]

Title: Distinguished colored men
Description: Commemorative print containing a montage of portraits of eminent African American men centered around a portrait of Frederick Douglass and bordered by vignettes. Portraiture depicts: "Robert Brown Elliott, Ex-member of Congress" from South Carolina; "Blanche K. Bruce, Ex-Senator, U.S." from Mississippi; "Prof. R.T. Greener, Dean, Howard University"; "Wm. Wells Brown, M.D., author of the Rising Son"; "Henry Highland Garnett [sic], Late Minister of Liberia"; "Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, 1st Bishop of the African M.E. Church" in Philadelphia; first African American governor, "P.B.S. Pinchback, Ex-Governor of Louisiana"; "J.H. Rainey, Ex-Member of Congress"; "E.D. Bassett, Ex-Minister to Hayti"; "John Mercer Langston, Minister to Hayti". Vignettes depict a cornstalk, a twig of cotton, and scenes of romanticized images of African American home life by a waterway showing African Americans playing instruments, dancing, transporting watermelon by barge, and relaxing., Title from item., Inscribed lower right corner: Agents Wanted., Lower left corner inexpertly hand painted., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1975, p. 61., Accessioned 1975., 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.
Date: 1883
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - African American Heroes [8139.F]

Title: Heroes of the colored race
Description: Print commemorating men prominent in and representative of the advancement of African American civil rights. Depicts a central vignette of bust-length portraits of ex-Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce of Mississippi, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and ex-Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi surrounded by four scenes of pre- and post-Civil War African American life. Includes two titled scenes, "Receiving the News of the Emancipation" depicting an older African American man, two women, and children celebrating, and "Studying the Lesson" depicting an African American man teacher instructing a classroom of children. Adorning the borders of the central vignette are a portrait of John Brown flanked by a horn of plenty and school books, and an eagle holding American flags embellished with portraits of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and Ulysses S. Grant. Other scenes depict enslaved African American men and women picking cotton and African American Civil War soldiers fighting a battle. Includes corner portraits of African American legislators John R. Lynch of Mississippi, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina, Robert Smalls of South Carolina, and Charles E. Nash of Louisiana., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1975, p. 60-61., Gift of Gordon Colket, 1975., Reaccessioned as P.9615., 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.
Date: 1881
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - African American Heroes [8140.F]

Title: Afro-American historical family record
Description: Blank African American genealogical certificate containing a family tree surrounded by portraits of the first twenty-four U.S. presidents; portraits of prominent African American men and women religious, political, and educational leaders; and eleven vignettes contrasting life in the South of the enslaved versus the free. African American portraits include Frederick Douglass flanked by Washington and Lincoln; Judson W. Lyons, Register of the Treasury; Miss Lucy C. Laney, Founder of the Haines Institute; Booker T. Washington; H.M. Turner, Bishop of the A.M.E. Church; T. Thomas Fortune, editor New York Age; Hon. John M. Langston, diplomat; Madam Sissiretta Jones, performer and singer; Miss Hallie Q. Brown, educator and African American women's rights activist; Prof. Mary V. Cook, Principal of the State University, Louisville, KY; Miss Ida B. Wells, editor and author; Hon. John R. Lynch, U.S. Paymaster and ex-Congressman; Dr. Henry Fitzbutler, founder of the Louisville National Medical College; and L.H. Holsey, Bishop of the C.M.E. Church. Vignettes depicting slavery include the last auction of enslaved people in Savannah; enslaved cotton pickers working the field; enslaved people dancing and playing instruments "as children were taught in the dark days of slavery"; and an enslaved family in front of their “hut.” Contrasting post-emancipation scenes include a view of Tuskegee Institute; a view of "progressive farming as taught at Tuskegee Institute"; a group portrait in front of a "school house erected by a Tuskegee graduate"; the Victorian house of R.R. Church, a free man; and Spanish-American War battle scenes of African American regiments assisting the Rough Riders, including at San Juan Hill. Also contains the white eye of Providence below the title., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1899, by J.M. Vickroy, Terre Haute, Ind., Printed on recto: Branch Office Terre Haute, Ind., Purchase 2002., Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., 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., Vickroy, a prominent Indiana fine arts publisher, specialized in genealogical and fraternal order certificates.
Date: 1899
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - African American Heroes [P.2002.16]

Main menu