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Title: Desperate conflict in a barn
Description: Engraving depicts an incident that is said to have occurred in a barn in Terrytown, Maryland in 1853. In search of freedom, four Virginia slaves, Robert Jackson, Craven Matterson, and the latter's two brothers escaped and travelled north. In Maryland, they were discovered by a man who saw them hiding in a thicket. According to the accompanying narrative, the man, who "talked like a Quaker," urged them to go to his barn for protection. The man, however, betrayed them, and a group of authorities arrived soon thereafter. A struggle ensued, during the course of which Jackson and Craven were shot, as well as the man who betrayed them., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 50., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Date: [1872]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 50, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2821

Title: The desperation of a mother
Description: With an axe in one hand and a candle in the other, a slave woman kneels in the cramped attic space where her two young sons sleep on the floor. Hovering above the boys, she shines her light upon them before killing them. According to an accompanying text, she then kills herself., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. I, no. 9, p. 97., Small caption underneath the image reads: "Why do you narrate the extraordinary cases of cruelty? These stories will not convert the cruel, and the wound the feelings of masters who are not son." REPLY. Cruelty is the fruit of the system., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
Date: [September 1835]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per A 245 16998.D v 1 n 9 cover page, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2858

Title: [The rebel pirate's fatal prize]
Description: Image depicts a scene on board the schooner S.J. Waring. The ship's steward William Tillman [i.e., Billy Tilghman], "the brave and daring negro," armed with a hatchet, defends himself and his wife from three men identified as the "Pirate Prize Master, Lieutenant, and Mate," who stand in his doorway. Having learned of their secret plot to sell him and his wife into slavery, Tillman murders them., Vignette on the broadside advertisement for The Rebel Pirate's Fatal Prize (Philadelphia: Reichner & Co., 1862)., Accompanied by the caption: "Back sirs! She is my wife, she is no slave! Seize her at your peril.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Date: [1862]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1862 Und (2) 5786.F 46e broadside vignette, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2809

Title: The horrible murder of the Dearing Family The above picture is a correct representation of the interior of the the barn and appearance of the murdered family as sketched by the artist shortly after the discovery of the murder, the murderer is in the act of dragging the bodies of Mrs. Dearing and the children into the adjoining corn crib, seen through the window to the right of the picture. Names of the murdered family: Christopher Dearing, aged 38 years; his wife, Julia Dearing, aged 45 years; their son, John Dearing, aged 8 years; their son, Thomas Dearing, aged 6 years; their daughter, Anna Dearing, aged 4 years; their daughter, Emily Dearing, aged 2 years; his niece [sic], Elizabeth Dolan, aged 25 years; and Cornelius Cary, aged 17 years
Description: News print showing the Philadelphia family murdered by their farmhand Anton Probst at their farm at Jones Lane in South Philadelphia on April 7, 1866. Probst, his face partially covered by the wall above the passageway, drags the body of one of the boys through it to the crib. The goateed murderer drags the boy by his feet, face up, from the pile of corpses laying on the hay covered floor. To the left of the image, Mrs. Dearing lays face down and covered by the bodies of her older children, who lay face up and with slit throats. Her hand is outstretched and resting on the baby, whose throat is also slit. To the right, in front of a barrel below a window, Mr. Dearing lays face up, a slit in his throat, his face covered by hay, and next to family friend Miss Dolan. She lays face down, her arms outstretched and her cross visible from beneath her body. Also shows, a pitchfork and ax propped against the wall in the background across from an opening to another section of the barn where cows stand in stalls. The murdered farmhand, Cary, is not depicted. Probst, a German immigrant and swindler, was a disgruntled former farmhand of the Dearings who murdered the family by hammer and ax for revenge and money. He was convicted in May 1866 and executed the following month at Moyamensing Prison for the largest murder in Philadelphia at that time., Not in Wainwright., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 361, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bb 892 D 285
Date: [1866]
Location: Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bb 892 D 285

Title: Scrapbook with periodical illustrations, comic valentines, and patent medicine advertisements
Description: Eccentrically-arranged scrapbook predominantly containing newspaper clippings, patent medicine almanac advertisements, and comic valentines. Also contains scraps, trade cards, and labels. Clippings, many published in the sensational periodicals “National Police Gazette” and “Days' Doings” primarily depict illustrations of murders and violence, crimes and punishments, human curiosities, animal attacks, human peril, women in distress, evocative theatrical performances, acts of daring, cross dressing and comic scenes in silhouette.

Title: [Scrapbook with periodical illustrations, comic valentines, and patent medicine advertisements]
Description: Eccentrically-arranged scrapbook predominantly containing newspaper clippings, patent medicine almanac advertisements, and comic valentines. Also contains scraps, trade cards, and labels. Clippings, many published in the sensational periodicals “National Police Gazette” and “Days’ Doings” primarily depict illustrations of murders and violence, crimes and punishments, human curiosities, animal attacks, human peril, women in distress, gender non-conforming people, evocative theatrical performances, acts of daring, and comic scenes in silhouette. Illustrations include H. P. Peer's 1879 jump from the Niagara Falls bridge and a fight between the elephant "Bolivar" and a camel in Van Amburgh's menagerie. Patent medicine advertisements primarily promote the products of Barker’s Horse, Cattle, and Poultry Powder; C. I. Hood’s Sarsaparilla; Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pill; and E. S. Well's Rough on Rats. Valentines satirize various professions and gender and ethnic stereotypes, including a cook, music teacher, machinist, hatter, seamstress, “French nurse –(from Ireland),” “novel reader,” “prudish young woman,” and “an old bore.”, Also contains some sentimental and genre imagery, including mothers and children, children playing, and pets; landscape and cityscape illustrations; racist caricatures of African Americans; Tobin trade cards depicting comical views of baseball players (p. 21); an advertisement for The Electric Era/ German Electric Belt Agency (Brooklyn, N.Y.); Dalziel Brother illustrations of scenes from popular Charles Dickens novels like “Nicholas Nickleby”; chromoxylograph illustration from Aunt Matilda series “The Little Deserter” (McLoughlin Bros., ca. 1869); illustrated children's book covers; and a finely-designed chromolithographic advertisement depicting allegorical figures, flowers, and produce to promote gardens (Lowell, Mass.)., Title supplied by cataloger., Small number of pages contain hand-coloring., Also originally included tucked-in partial editions of N.Y. newspapers issued in 1890. Issues housed in mylar and with scrapbook., Scrap depicting two racing horses and their jockeys pasted on back cover., Housed in phase box., Purchase 2012., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Date: [ca. 1869-ca. 1890, bulk 1880-1890]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.2012.42]

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