Advertisement showing the multi-storied manufactory of Benedict D. Stewart at Willow Street and Old York Road, i.e., 435-437 York Avenue. Signs with the name of the proprietor, the business, and street names adorn the building in which a man enters the doorway. Shutters adorn the lower and slats adorn the upper windows. In the right, broadsides adorn the small fence to the courtyard between the main and partially visible rear building of the factory. In the right foreground, laborers transport, pile, and load crates (some marked), and sacks onto a horse-drawn dray. Also shows a gentleman walking on the sidewalk. Stewart began his factory at the address in 1839., Title supplied by cataloguer., Date from Poulson inscription on recto: S.E. cor. Willow & Old York Road Aug. 1847, Wainwright suggests date of circa 1855., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 485, Wainwright retrospective conversion project, edited.
Date
[August 1847]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *W236 [P.2106]
Advertisement depicting the large factory's several industrial buildings, sheds, and fenced yard near a busy street and sidewalk. Workers attend to a maze of drying lines with hanging leather pieces; delivery carts traverse the yard and depart through the gate under the sign "McNeely & Co."; and a laborer uses a horse-drawn cart to collect coal from a mound beside the main building. Pedestrians, including a white woman and boy, stroll and converse on the sidewalk. In the street, an African American man and woman couple push a filled handcart and a crowded horse-drawn omnibus from the "Frankford Road - Fourth Street" line passes by. The McNeely family operated a leather manufactory in Philadelphia from 1830 until the early 20th century., Title from item., Date of publication supplied by Wainwright., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 463, Accessioned 1982., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Rease, a prominent mid-19th century Philadelphia trade card lithographer known to highlight details of human interest in his advertisements, partnered with Francis H. Schell in the 1850s and eventually operated his own press until around 1872.
Creator
Rease, W.H, artist
Date
[ca. 1860]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **W230 [P.2129]
