Scrapbook
Title
Scrapbook
Description
Scrapbook compiled by Philadelphia socialite Minnie Campbell Wilson (neé Harris) containing primarily place, greeting, holiday and calling cards predominantly issued in the United Kingdom and the Northeast United States. Majority of the cards are printed and or chromolithographs, with a small number illustrated with drawings by hand. Many cards also contain ornate border details, embossing, and adornments, including ribbons, fringe, lace, a wishbone, and overlays. Contents also include die-cuts of fans, horse shoes, a spoon, a flamingo, one-quarter moon, a woman’s leg, and a bird as a cover for a H. O. Neill & Co. illustrated hat catalog. Cards often depict sentimental and genre imagery including cupids, butterflies, flowers, vases and baskets; religious, historical and Asian-themed scenes, figures and/or decor; seasonal landscape views; women, children, and costumed figures; animals, including birds, chicks, dogs, and cats; and fruit. Other imagery includes two witches flying on brooms holding a "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" banner; London printer William Dickes series of women in native costume from Switzerland, Russia, and Norway; a holiday card that opens to a sledding scene of children holding letters spelling "Merry Christmas"; and a Valentine Day card showing a letter slot filled with valentines. Scrapbook also contains watercolors and drawings, trade cards, programs, menus, invitations, ribbons, photographs, etchings, newspaper clippings, including an announcement of the wedding of Adelaide Watson, and a post card from "cousin Will." Trade cards advertise businesses, including J. E. Caldwell & Co., Stephen F. Whitman & Son, P. Fleischner & Co., Sharpless & Sons, F. T. Howell & Co., A. Ripka & Bro., J. H. Way & Bro., and Automatic Signal Telegraph Co. containing four scenes showing a robbery and fire and police and fire department., Scrapbook contains a number of items depicting Asian people or decorative themes, including a greeting card that reads, "A Happy New Year to You," and showing a Japanese woman, attired in a kimono, sitting and watering a potted plant [p. 9]; a card that reads, "Miss Harris," and depicting a Japanese woman, attired in a kimono made of fabric, standing and facing left [p. 18]; a card titled, "Bric a brac," and showing a blue and white porcelain bowl, vase, and pitcher bordered by hand fans and three flying cranes [p. 29]; and Asian men attired in kimonos having their noses pulled or pulling noses [p. 47]., Watercolors and drawings depict a woman attired in early 19th-century garb in a pumpkin patch, marinescapes, and an anthropomorphic frog. Photographs include a half stereograph showing a croquet match in front of a resort hotel and a photograph of Fifth and Walnut streets (Philadelphia) “taken by Chris in "88." Etchings include a portrait of an elderly man and one signed F. A. Stokes showing a man at a table. Other ephemera includes a hand-made tablet with a cover containing a watercolor depicting birds; a cloth padded bird figurine; a metamorphic playbill for the play "French Flats" at Union Square Theatre; a typewritten engagement announcement composed as a poem; a Christmas Hymnal booklet; handwritten word games, including 'Progressive Conversation"; a Pennsylvania Railroad "Old Point Comfort" tour schedule; and a train schedule scrap annotated with a doodle and inscribed text., Black binding, stamped on cover: Scrapbook., Label pasted on verso of cover: Patent Back Scrap Book. Pat. March 28, 1876., Inscribed on front free end paper: Minnie Campbell Harris Philadelphia. January 12, 1887., Provenance and date of majority of contents identified by brief inscriptions. Provenances include Nannie (i.e., Mary Jaudon) Harris, Lucy and Susan Jaudon, Mai Philler, Carrie (i.e., Caroline) Biddle, and Helen Morton., Printers include Philadelphia firms Craig, Finley & Co., Dreka, Rowley & Chew, and Sunshine Pub. Co.; Boston firm L. Prang & Co.; and British and Irish firms William Dickes, Marcus Ward & Co., and Eyre & Spottiswoode., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Housed in phase box., Gift of Elizabeth McLean., Inventory available at repository., Mary Campbell Harris (known as Minnie), daughter of U.S. Naval Commander Thomas Cadwalder Harris (1826-1875) and Mary Louisa Bainbridge Jaudon (1835-1914), was born in New York on December 27, 1862. Descended from Commodore William Bainbridge and Thomas Harris, the first surgeon-general of the United States Navy, Harris and her family resided in Philadelphia by 1866. In 1893, she married John L. Wilson (b. 1850), later treasurer of Coal Land Corporation and the couple resided in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. Harris was active in the Sedgely Club and often attended and held card parties, teas, and luncheons noted in the local press. Harris spent her later years residing in Bryn Mawr where she died circa 1948.
Creator
Wilson, Mary Campbell Harris, 1862-approximately 1948
Date
[ca. 1877-ca. 1890]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Harris [P.9682.1]
[Specimens album]
Title
[Specimens album]
Description
Scrapbook of print specimens and proofs probably compiled by a printer associated with the Philadelphia lithographic firm Stein & Jones. Contains book and periodical plates and illustrations; sheet music covers; proof prints; collecting cards; trade cards (several glossed); bank notes, checks, billheads, and receipts; certificates; advertising calendars; and chromolithographed labels and scraps. Majority of contents include several plates from Thomas Allom's "China: In a Series of Views,..." (London, 1860), Albert Barnes's "Scenes and Incidents in the Life of the Apostle Paul" (Philadelphia, 1869), John Fleetwood's "The life of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Philadelphia, 1871) and Daniel March's "Our Father's House , or The Unwritten Word" (Philadelphia, 1871); illustrations and plates depicting genre, religious, sentimental, historical, natural history, scientific, and scenic views from children and gift books, and periodicals, including "Leila in England" and "Leila at Home" (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1875-1880), "Peterson's Magazine" (plates engraved by Illman Brothers), "Ladies Companion," "Graham's Magazine," "Odd Fellow's Casket," "Transactions and Proceedings of American Entomological Society" and "Annals Lyceum of Natural History"; and several works printed by Stein & Jones and Cincinnati lithographers Klauprech & Menzel and Ehrgott & Fobriger, including trade cards, labels, tickets, invitations, certificates, receipts, checks, bank notes, sheet music covers, advertisements, and book illustrations., Bank notes, receipts, checks, and certificates document primarily Philadelphia and New York bank, coal, oil, steel, and real estate businesses, including Bank of Fashion, Belmont Petroleum Refinery, and Union College Bank. Trade cards, tickets, invitations, and labels represent primarily Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York, Cincinnati and Chicago businesses and organizations, including printers and art supply dealers; perfume, patent medicine, wine, dry goods, and clothing dealers; doctors and dentists; bankers and brokers; and manufacturers. The materials contain patriotic, agricultural, and transportation vignettes, views of buildings, anaglyptography (i.e., medal engraving), allegorical figures, and Centennial Exhibition (1876) imagery. Sheet music covers, predominantly printed by Ehrgott & Fobriger, depict mainly genre and Civil War scenes, portraiture, including images of entertainers, and advertisements such as "Sewing Machine Polka." Work by the Cincinnati lithographers also include several book illustrations depicting Ohio and Cincinnati asylums, institutes, seminaries, and landmarks, as well as uncut sheets of views of cemetery monuments for "The Cincinnati Cemetery of Spring Grove..." (Cincinnati, 1862). Several of the ephemera also printed by Grattan & Co., Theodore Leonhardt, and Wm. F. Murphy & Sons., Scrapbook also contains 1860s Berlin wool work patterns ("Peterson’s Ladies National Magazine"); ornate border print specimens, some with cut-out overlays; proofs and final states of textile, fruit, liquor, druggist labels, and tobacco labels printed predominantly by Stern, Jonas & Co. and Steng & Paxson and depicting romantic, patriotic, and mystical themes, including "I Am Free" logo illustrated with an African American man ; European prints, including plates from Bernard-Romain Julien "Cours Elementaire," and issued by German publisher A.H. Payne (some hand-colored); ca. 1855 Bowen & Co. plates of birds from "United States Pacific Rail Road Expedition and Survey"; color printed and numbered proof lithographs depicting Mo-Hon-Go; Shar- I-Tar-Ish; Se-Quo-Yah after plates in McKenney & Hall's "History of the Indian Tribes of North America"; Philadelphia Sketch Club signage; portraits of Catholic bishops, celebrity and political figures, and lithographers Rudolph Stein and Alfred Jones; mechanical views printed by William Boell; job printing specimen vignettes depicting masonic, military, allegorical, and patriotic imagery, transportation views, women, entertainers, agriculture, buildings, animals, and machinery; collecting cards showing George and Martha Washington, Civil War generals, celebrities, including Lydia Thompson and Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosasea, wild life, Biblical animals, fashion, and satiric scenes; and chromolithographic scrap portraits of women., Stamped on spine: Specimens., Various artists, engravers, lithographers, and printers including Ackerman; John Alexander; Thomas Allom; William Boell; John T. Bowen,; Bowen & Co.; Byram & Slack; C. E. Wemple & Co.; Donaldson Brothers ; G. Dow; Ehrgott & Fobriger; Dominque Fabronius; Grattan & Co.; The Hatch Lith. Co.; Otto Knirsch; L. H. Bradford & Co.; Klauprech & Menzel; Theodore Leonhardt; London Printing and Publishing Company; McLaughlin Bros.; Antoine [Maurin?]; A.H. Payne; Prang & Co.; Rawdon, Wright & Hatch; William H. Rease; Sarony & Major; John Sartain; Samuel Sartain; R. Trembley; J. Shobe; Steng & Paxson; Stern, Jonas & Co.; A. B. Walter; and Wm. F. Murphy & Sons., Index of general subjects illustrated available at repository., Several items found loose in album removed and housed separately., Gift of Margaret Robinson, 1991., 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. 1852-ca. 1876]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.9349], https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A120747?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=a3bf36a0044447b21c5b&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=0#page/3/mode/1up