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Title: The Ledger carrier's annual greeting. To their subscribers, New Year, 1855
Description: Allegorical print depicting female allegorical figures in front of a temple of Justice. Depicts in the left, Peace as a white woman attired in a laurel wreath crown and a white Roman gown, standing across from the white figure of Liberty and pointing with her left hand toward the temple in the background. Liberty, wearing the American flag as a cape, and with a liberty pole and cap in hand, charges toward the temple. Three muse-like female followers, including two white women, one holding an urn, and a Black woman, looking toward the temple, stand alongside her. Behind Peace, a white cherub stands by a stack of books. Scene also includes a discarded shield and sword laying on the ground in the foreground., Title from item., Presumably issued late in 1854 by Swain, Abell & Simons, the publisher of the Philadelphia newspaper, the Public Ledger, for their subscribers., Printed below the image: Printing! the art of every art preserver. The lever that uplifts the world of mind. Of Justice, Peace, and Human Rights conserver; The sense of vision to the mental blind. The torch of genius flashes o’er its pages, Illumes Fame’s temple with its dazzling ray. And marks the means for moulding future ages, In universal education’s sway., Purchase 1984., 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., Sartain, a premier Philadelphia portrait and genre engraver of the 19th century, was also a social reformer who often incorporated his reformist beliefs into his work., Schussele was a historical, genre, landscape, and portrait painter and respected professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts whose paintings his professional associate and friend, John Sartain, often engraved.
Creator: Sartain, John, 1808-1897, engraver
Date: [1854]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Allegories - L [P.9000.1]

Title: Facsimile of the signatures to the Declaration of Independence
Description: Commemorative print containing facsimiles of the signatures of the signers of the Declaration of Independence within an ornamental border. In the top of the border are allegorical figures of Justice, depicted as a white woman carrying scales and a sword, and Liberty, depicted as a white woman attired in a liberty cap and carrying a spear and shield. An eagle stands between them next to a crest of an American flag. Along the sides of the border are the state seals of the original thirteen colonies. At the bottom is a vignette, “The Capitol, Washington,” showing the Capitol building. Vigettes also includes several white men standing with a dog and an African American woman caregiver with a white child who holds a hoop., Title from item., Date inferred from the aesthetics of the content., Contains printed statement by John Quincy Adams, Department of State, dated April 19, 1819 declaring the signatures "Exact Imitations.", McCabe, a New York engraver, was active in the mid-19th century., Purchase 2002., 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: Allen, J. W., engraver
Date: [ca. 1855]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Declaration of Independence [P.9999]

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: Historical monument of our country
Description: Allegorical print after the 1858 painting by German-born painter Johann Michael Enzing-Müller documenting the history of the United States from ca. 1000 to the 1850s. In the right foreground, Norsemen, some seated and some standing on ground marked "1000" are portrayed discovering North America, which they called Vinland. A few of the men hold bunches of grapes, a shield, or a spear. In the left foreground, Columbus stands on a shore, between a rowboat holding white men, one writing in a ledger and with his back to an enslaved Black man in shackles, and a group of Indigenous people wearing headdresses. Columbus holds a flag into the ground marked "1492" and a sword up into the air. Behind the scene Plymouth Rock with the date "1620" inscribed on it is visible. In the center of the image, white men in different era attire use tools, convene, or celebrate near a trunk, cargo, and a stone wall. Beside them, in the right, a Pilgrim family (man, woman, child) rests near a frontiersman completing a blanket tent near cattle. In the upper right, the image contains scenes representing the American Revolution, including soldiers at battle and wounded men being attended to. In the upper left, ships and trains depicted near cityscape strewn with people and from which an American flag flies represents American progress. In the upper center, the American eagle mauls the British lion and unicorn on a stone mound. At top center, on a pyramid-like structure adorned with the shields of the states of the Union, George Washington stands with his hand on the Constitution which rests on an ornate stand. To his left are the fourteen presidents who followed him standing in a line. Above them, are allegorical women figures of Liberty and Justice. An allegorical female figure holding the Declaration of Independence sits to Washington's right. Behind the Presidents and pyramid is the new U.S. Capitol building with a dome., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyright 1893, by Myers, Bryn & Cranford., RVCDC
Creator: Enzing-Müller, Johann Michael, 1804-1808
Date: c1893
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department ***GC-Allegories [P.2023.42.1]

Title: John Brown meeting the slave mother and her child on the steps of Charlestown jail on his way to execution
Description: Print depicting the fictitious meeting between John Brown and an enslaved African American mother during the radical abolitionist's walk to the gallows in December 1859. Shows Brown at the top of the steps of the Charles Town, Virginia jail being led by several white men past the mother holding and looking down at her baby. The men include a prison guard in militia-uniform attempting to push the mother aside as Brown gazes compassionately upon her; the jailor, an old bearded man in cape and hat with his hand raised in front of his chin; the jailor's friend, a balding, bearded man pointing the way to the execution; and another militia man in an old Continental" uniform with a tricorne hat labeled "76." Also includes the Virginia state flag, waving above the head of Brown in the shape of a halo inscribed, "Sic Semper Tyrannis," i.e.; "Who is the tyrant, who the conqueror?" and a stern-faced, enslaver, attired in a Virginia militia uniform, waiting impatiently at the bottom of the stairs opposite a dismembered statue of justice in a pile of rubbish., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1863, by Currier and Ives in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York., Text printed below the title: The artist has represented Capt. Brown regarding with a look of compassion a Slave-mother and Child who obstructed the passage on his way to the scaffold. Capt. Brown stooped and kissed the child- then met his fate., Original painting described in "A Rare Picture," an 1886 broadside probably by Ransom, in the collections of the library of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Transcription available at repository., Purchase 1969., Reaccessioned as P.2003.18., 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: Currier & Ives
Date: 1863
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *Portrait Prints-B [7817.F]

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