[Print specimens depicting African Americans from the Thomas Richardson and American Bank Note Company scrapbook]
Title
[Print specimens depicting African Americans from the Thomas Richardson and American Bank Note Company scrapbook]
Description
Includes predominantly banknote specimens showing enslaved, free, and possibly free African American men, women, and children. Images depict an African American man driver hauling a wagon filled with hay (p. 38); an African American man farm hand tending to horse in a farmyard (p. 38); enslaved men harvesting a field of grain (p. 45); an African American man cart driver hauling bundles up an incline (p. 50); enslaved men picking cotton juxtaposed with a townscape vista (p. 54); African American men workers collecting sap from trees under the view of a white foreman on horseback (p. 61); enslaved men, women, and children cutting and loading sugar cane onto a wagon at a “Sugar Plantation” (p. 66); an African American man driver leading “The Mule Team” on a country road (p. 67); African American men workers “Breaking Hemp” (p. 68); and a proof copy of an illustration from Susan Fenimore Cooper's "Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper" (New York, 1861) depicting a scene by a hearth from “The Spy” with an African American male servant looking over the shoulder of a white woman housekeeper (p. 26). Majority of specimens include roadside scenery or plantation or residential buildings in the background. “Sugar Plantation” view also shows a steamboat on a river in the background., Title supplied by cataloger., Date inferred from the active dates of the partnerships of the printers in the imprints and content., Artists include F. O. C. Darley and Louis Denoce., Printers include American Bank Note Co.; Baldwin, Bald & Cousland; and Bald, Cousland & Co., Some items contain specimen number printed in lower right corner. Includes 131, 144, and 212., RVCDC, Accessioned 2012., 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., Thomas Richardson (b. ca. 1802) was a Philadelphia plate printer who served as the foreman of printing at the Philadelphia branch of the American Bank Note Company formed in 1858. He retired from the trade by 1880.
Date
[ca. 1855-ca. 1857]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.2012.6]
[Deborah Passmore Gillingham scrapbook of prints, drawings, and specimens] [graphic].
Title
[Deborah Passmore Gillingham scrapbook of prints, drawings, and specimens]
Description
Scrapbook of chiefly engravings, drawings, and specimens compiled starting in 1847 by Quaker amateur artist Deborah P. Gillingham. Contains several circa 1810s-1850s book and periodical illustrations, including from "Godey’s Lady’s Book," the "Union Magazine", and the "Literary Souvenir" (London), that depict genre, sentimental, historical, European, and literary scenes and views, as well as portraits of prominent American and European literary, religious, and political figures, particularly abolitionists. Titles of illustrations include "Cinderella"; "Harvest Wagon"; "Bolton Abbey, Wharfdale"; "Lockport, Erie Canal"; "Bit"; "The Sisters Clio"; "Steps to Ruin"; "The Rescue"; "Warming the Mitten"; "Going to School"; "Queen Henrietta Interceding for the King"; "France, Lyon"; and "Fall of Terni." Many of the "Union Magazine" illustrations are after the work of artist Tompkins H. Matteson and depict scenes with children, women, families and/or couples. Illustrations also include the 1848 comic plate "The Lost Glove" depicting an African American servant and a dandy ("Union Magazine," April 1848) and an 1838? portrait of "Joanna," the enslaved woman with whom British–Dutch colonial soldier and author of "The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam" (1796, reprinted 1838) John Gabriel Stedman had a relationship. Portrait sitters include Lucretia Mott, Gerrit Smith, Elias Hicks, Thomas Clarkson, Thomas Moore, Daniel O’Connell, Alice B. Neale, and Benjamin Lundy. Illustrations also depict Philadelphia landmarks, including Franklin Institute, Schuylkill Water Works, and Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. Philadelphia views also include a separately-issued lithograph depicting Clermont Academy printed by Childs & Inman after George Lehman., A number of pencil works and ink drawings comprise the scrapbook with many captioned and depicting dwelling, landscape, and landmark views of Switzerland and Great Britain. Includes pencil sketch "from memory" of "Jungfrau, Switzerland" (Alps) by "E.B.E"; pencil drawing "The House in which Shakespeare was born. Henley Street. Strafford Upon Avon"; gouache and watercolors of "Chinese Fish"; pencil drawings with Chinese white captioned "Austin's Farm at Supiston Suffolk. The early residence of Robert Bloomfield" and "Mill at Bannockburn in which James 3rd was killed"; a pencil drawing of Friends Bank Meeting House inscribed "Mary Young"; pencil drawing of "Residence of George Fox" inscribed "John Young"; and two landscape watercolors by English Quaker social reformer and anti-slavery activist Elizabeth Heyrick., Scrapbook also contains several labeled botanical and material specimens from historical, Biblical, literary, and cultural landmarks and sites, as well as "Specimens of sea moss (i.e. algae) from Cape May May 1848" (one arranged in the letters "D.G.") and the hair of "E.M. Chandler." Often placed in folded sheets of paper with inscribed labels, specimens include "From the scene of Grays Elegy by Mantle Tower That Yew Tree shade"; "From the grave of Cromwell"; "Waterloo"; "Piece of South Sea Island Cloth"; "Mummy cloth unrolled by Gliddon 1851"(Egyptologist George Robbins Gliddon publically unwrapped mummies as performances in Boston and Philadelphia, 1851-1852); and "Pompei.", Additional items of note include a pencil sketch by Gillingham of "East Mount. The residence of John Pease England"; etchings depicting Suffolk landmarks by Henry Davy; the anti-slavery manuscript poem "America" signed and dated by British Quaker novelist, poet, and abolitionist Amelia Opie (Norwich 1846); the anti-slavery manuscript poem "Do as thou wouldst be done by"… signed and dated by British Quaker poet Bernard Barton (Woodbridge September 19, 1846); and circa 1847 calling cards by Chinese writing specialist Tsow Chaoong (Philadelphia 1847-1849) handwritten in English and Chinese characters “D.P. Gillingham” and "Y. M. Gillingham." A small number of circa 1900s clippings and photomechanical prints of portraits and landscapes also comprise the contents., Title supplied by cataloger., Date inferred from content., Inscribed on p. [1]: Deborah P. Gillingham 10 mo 20. 1847., Marbled paper binding., Several pages contain tissue paper overlays., Incomplete pencil sketch of dwellings on verso of drawing of "The River Side of Earlham" on p. [10]., Various artists, engravers, printers, and publishers include Childs & Inman; John Collins; Henry Davy; A. L. Dick; George Lehman; Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green; Tompkins H. Matteson; Henry Sadd; John Sartain; and Thomas Sinclair., RVCDC, Access points revised 2022., Housed in phase box., Number of items missing or removed from pages., Page numbers added by cataloger lower right corner., Loose pages and inserts of gold paper removed, placed in enclosure, and housed with scrapbook in phase book., Deborah Passmore Gillingham (1820-1877), cousin of professional botanical illustrator Deborah Griscom Passmore (1840-1911), was an amateur botanical illustrator. Disowned from the Orthodox Philadelphia Meeting, Northern District in 1842, Passmore became a member of the Hicksite Green Street Meeting. She married Philadelphia wool merchant Yeamans Moon Gillingham (1817-1885) in 1844 and relocated with him to Moorestown, N.J. in 1850 following his retirement. The couple had a son Aubrey Howard Gillingham (1850-1885). In 1855 the family was recommended by the Green Street Meeting for the Eversham Monthly Meeting, N.J. At her death, Gillingham was a member of the Moorestown Monthly Meeting. Among her bequests were funds to endow beds at the Philadelphia Orthopedic Hospital and Dispensary and the Women’s Hospital.
Creator
Gillingham, Deborah Passmore, 1820-1877, compiler
Date
[ca. 1810-ca. 1910, bulk 1830-1850]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2019.6]