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- Title
- Philadelphia taste displayed. Or, bon-ton below stairs
- Description
- Satiric scene showing high society, i.e., "bon-ton" in a Philadelphia oyster cellar. A "gentleman" descends the stairwell to the swankly decorated cellar where a motley gathering of men drink, smoke, gossip, and suck oysters. An African American bartender serves drinks from decanters in the left of the image. The bar is adorned with a notice reading "City Privilege still without license." Another African American attends the oyster bar. Plates, crackers, salt, and vinegars line the edge. In the right of the image, a sick-faced patron wobbles and spills his drink next to a tall clock with a decorated face and the inscription "Music has charms." Possibly, the cellar at 806 Market Street operated by African American proprietor James Prosser from about 1830., Inscribed on verso: Said Wm Van [?] of the Walnut/ Chestnut? St. Theatre., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 598, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bb 38 O 97, LCP exhibit catalogue: Made in America #40., Jackson, Joseph, Encyclopedia of Philadelphia, p. 386-387
- Creator
- Akin, James, ca. 1773-1846, artist
- Date
- [ca. 1830]
- Location
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bb 38 O 97
- Title
- [Fashion print showing a couple attired in Quaker costume]
- Description
- Fashion print showing a young couple in plain dress on promenade. The man wears a broad-rimmed hat, white cravat, and suit. The woman wears a poke bonnet and a plain dress with a large white collar and puff sleeves. Each holds or wears gloves., Date from manuscript note on recto: Costume 1844., Philadelphia on Stone
- Date
- 1844
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department BW - Fashion [P.2005]
- Title
- Two of the killers
- Description
- View showing two outlandishly-attired members of the Philadelphia gang known as the "Killers" carousing on the street. One sits on a fire hydrant and the other leans against a lamp pole (posted with a "Sale" notice") at a street tenanted by a "Grocery" and adorned with broadsides. The men wear patterned pants, jackets with tails, oversized neck ties, and top hats. One also wears a pin adorned "K." They each have their hands in their pockets and smoke cigarettes. The grocery displays a barrel of brooms in addition to signs reading "Coffee Sugar Tea" and "Teas Coffee 5." The broadsides adorning the opposite building advertise "Auction this Evening" and "Circus The Old Man of the Mountain..... Dan Rice Clown." The playbill is illustrated with a scene of an equestrian trick. The "Killers," organized circa 1846, were a band of young men who menaced the Moyamensing neighborhood and were associated with the Moyamensing Hose Company and the Democratic Keystone Club., Date from Poulson inscription on recto: 1848., Wainwright suggests date of circa 1855., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 761, Wainwright retrospective conversion project, edited., Reproduced in Edwin Wolf's Philadelphia: Portrait of American city (Published by Camino Books in cooperation the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1990), page 199.
- Date
- [1848]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *W408 [P.2219]
- Title
- Skating. Scene on the River Delaware at Philadelphia. Febry. 12th 1831
- Description
- Amusing winter genre scene showing several individuals enjoying the frozen river as a place for recreation, travel, and as a place of observation for the February 12, 1831 solar eclipse. In the foreground, several ice skaters, predominately men, skate, perform tricks, and fall. One of the fallen includes an African American man, lying on his back, his hat on the ice near a dog playing with a ball. In the right of the image, a vendor serves beverages from a refreshment stand. In the background, several others skate, ride and pull sleds, or enjoy a horse-drawn sleigh ride., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 696, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bb 07 S 17, LCP exhibit catalogue: Made in America, entry #44, Smithsonian, Harry T. Peters Collection: DL*60.3655. Copy hand-colored., Trimmed.
- Creator
- Clay, Edward Williams, 1799-1857, artist
- Date
- [1831]
- Location
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bb 07 S 17
- Title
- P.S. Duval, Son & Co. Designers & lithographer Philadelphia Portraits & all subjects of fine arts executed in chromo
- Description
- Frontispiece advertisement containing a Western-themed scene set within a mirror-shaped panel with Victorian details. Scene shows a canyon valley in which miners prepare to depart from their log cabin base. The men sit on logs and a wagon loaded with small crates, carry picks, and engage in discussion. In the background, miners pick at rocks near a waterfall emptying into a stream within the valley. The oval-shape image is bordered by the figure of a Native American man holding a gun and a pipe, and an African American man holding a hoe, smoking a pipe, and seated next to a plant on the base of the panel. Floral details and an American flag adorn the upper frame of the oval. The Duval firm operated under the name P.S. Duval & Son or P.S Duval, Son & Co. circa 1857-circa 1879., Not in Wainwright., Published in Edwin Freedley's Philadelphia and its manufactures: a hand-Book of the great manufactories and representative mercantile houses of Philadelphia, in 1867 (Philadelphia: Edward Young & Co., 1867(Philadelphia: Edward Young & Co., 1867), frontispiece., Philadelphia on Stone, POSA 71
- Creator
- P.S. Duval & Son
- Date
- [1867]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1867 Free 55213.O.frontispiece
- Title
- Harrison's Columbian hair dye Manufactured by Apollos W. Harrison, 8 1/2 South 7th St
- Description
- Advertisement for the Philadelphia perfumer and ink manufacturer containing an ornate frame comprised of vignettes, pictorial details, and ornaments surrounding ornamented text. Vignettes depict patriotic symbols of the American eagle and U.S. shield and two scenes. Scene in the left shows a gentleman being attended to by his valet. The gentleman has wavy, ear-length, dark hair and wears a blue and red patterned dressing gown. The valet, in a grey suit, looks at a bottle in his gentleman's left hand. The gentleman scratches his head with his right hand. Scene in the right shows a woman, looking down, pulling her fingers through her long dark hair that rests over her shoulders past her waist. She wears a peasant-like dress with a red bodice and green-striped skirt with a paisley pattern. The border also contains scroll-like pictorial details, geometric shaped ornaments, and pattern backgrounds. A thick, blue block of color frames the border like an outline. Harrison, originally a book, map, and ink dealer, began operating his perfumery, including hair dyes, circa 1853. By the late 1850s, Harrison employed over 80 employees, including 25 traveling agents., Artist's imprint in lower right and left of stone., Not in Wainwright., Philadelphia on Stone, POSP 291
- Creator
- Schussele, Christian, 1826?-1879, artist
- Date
- [ca. 1853]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *BW - Advertisements - H [P.2015.71.2]
- Title
- The wood-cart
- Description
- Plate from children's moral instruction book showing an African American man and three passengers traveling in a horse-drawn cart down a dirt path towards the lumber yard. A residence facing the road is visible in the background., Published in Common sights in town & country. Delineated & described for young children (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, No. 146 Chestnut Street, [ca. 1853])., Accompanied by text titled "The wood-cart" moralizing, through the tale of the diligent wood-carter, that good habits in this lifetime offer peace and comfort, and prepare us "for the better life which is to come"., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 865, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bd 61 K 8342.30, Free Library of Philadelphia:, Atwater Kent Museum: 46.57.1.3
- Creator
- Kollner, Augustus, b. 1813
- Date
- [ca. 1853]
- Location
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bd 61 K 8342.30
- Title
- Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, of Philadelphia Being the first institution of the kind in the United States. Organized, May 27th. 1861
- Description
- Lively scene containing a view of the two hospitals, refreshment stand, and other buildings of the Refreshment Saloon located near the Navy Yard at Swanson and Washington Avenues. Depicts a large crowd gathered to watch the arrival and departure of Union troops in November of 1863. Arriving soldiers march past the cannon, known as "Fort Brown," fired to forewarn saloon volunteers of the forthcoming arrival of troops. Departing soldiers board a Philadelphia, Wilmington, & Baltimore railroad car for the South. American flags dot the landscape. Crowd includes a band and an African American man. Contains the names of committee members and volunteers below the image. Situated at the transportation hub between the North and the South on land leased en gratis from the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, the Saloon was a volunteer relief agency providing meals, hospital care, washing, sleeping, and writing facilities to military personnel, freedom seekers. It served over 800,000 men, 1,025,000 meals before closing on December 1, 1865., Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee's blindstamp on recto., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 771, Detailed inscription by Fales about the history of the saloon on recto. Transcription available at repository., Manuscript note on recto of 5778.F Union Volunteer: "John A. McAllister Esq. with the kind regards of Saml B. Fales, Phila. Nov. 24th, 1866." Fales served on the Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee as correspondence secretary and financial agent, and became the committee's main fundraiser., Manuscript note on recto of P.2023.2: Mr. McNally with the compliments of Samuel B. Fales, No. 707 Vine St. Philadelphia., Description revised 2023., Access points revised 2021., P.2023.2 gift of Philadelphia Magazine., Digital image shows 5778.F Union Volunteer., Queen was a premier Philadelphia lithographer and pioneer chromolithographer known for his attention to detail, who served in the Civil War militia from 1862 until 1863, and created several lithographs with Civil War subjects, including views of and contribution certificates for the city's relief institutions.
- Creator
- Queen, James Fuller, 1820 or 21-1886, artist
- Date
- [1863]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **W412 [5778.F Union Volunteer and P.2023.2]
- Title
- Indian Queen Hotel
- Description
- Advertisement depicting the three-and-a-half story hotel at 15 South Fourth Street operated, as indicated by a placard above the door, by Horatio Wade. Wade remained proprietor from 1831 until 1833. Elegantly dressed white guests enter the building, converse on the sidewalk, and rest and read inside near the first floor windows. On the sidewalk, well-dressed white men and women pedestrians stroll. An African American hotel porter, attired in a black top hat, a white collared shirt, a black bowtie, waistcoat, pants, and shoes, pushes a wheelbarrow of luggage. The Indian Queen Hotel established in 1771, the building altered several times until razed in 1851, was until the mid 19th century incorrectly identified as the site of Thomas Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence., Title from item., Manuscript note on verso: No. 15 So. Fourth Street., Print trimmed and lacking caption., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 381, Poulson inscription on recto: 1831, no. 15 So. Fourth Street., Accessioned 1982., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
- Date
- [1831]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *W184 [P.2051]
- Title
- Harrison's Columbian hair dye Manufactured by Apollos W. Harrison, 8 1/2 South 7th St
- Description
- Advertisement for the Philadelphia perfumer and ink manufacturer containing an ornate frame comprised of vignettes, pictorial details, and ornaments surrounding ornamented text. Vignettes depict patriotic symbols of the American eagle and U.S. shield and two scenes. Scene in the left shows a gentleman being attended to by his valet. The gentleman has wavy, ear-length, dark hair and wears a blue and red patterned dressing gown. The valet, in a grey suit, looks at a bottle in his gentleman's left hand. The gentleman scratches his head with his right hand. Scene in the right shows a woman, looking down, pulling her fingers through her long dark hair that rests over her shoulders past her waist. She wears a peasant-like dress with a red bodice and green-striped skirt with a paisley pattern. The border also contains scroll-like pictorial details, geometric shaped ornaments, and pattern backgrounds. The background is printed in red and is framed by a blue border. Harrison, originally a book, map, and ink dealer, began operating his perfumery, including hair dyes, circa 1853. By the late 1850s, Harrison employed over 80 employees, including 25 traveling agents., Title from item., Date and publication information supplied Library Company duplicate with variant colors., Not in Wainwright., See related: *BW - Advertisements - H [P.2015.71.2]., Gift of David Doret., Philadelphia on Stone, POSP 291a
- Creator
- Schussele, Christian, 1826?-1879, artist
- Date
- [ca. 1853]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *Doret and Mitchell Collection – Prints [P.2022.62.3.45]
- Title
- 3' o'clock in the morning 3 uhr morgens
- Description
- Amusing genre scene depicting three drunk men stumbling arm-in-arm down a city block in front of fenced, wooden scaffolding. The man on the left skips, raises his hat and supports the unconscious man in the middle, who wears a lady's bonnet on his head. The man on the right also supports the bonnet-wearing man while he clings his arm around a lamp post as he holds a long pipe. Playbills and advertisements adorn the wooden fence in front of the scaffolding. The postings promote the National Police Gazette, Wheatley's Arch Street Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre, John Drew's National Theatre, the Academy of Music, and steam boat Edwin Forrest of Trenton Capt. McMakin. An African American coach driver, with a whip in hand, watches the frivolity in the background., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 4, Atwater Kent Museum: 54.8.1, Copy with variant title and imprint ["Three in the Morning," Childs, 63 North 2nd St.] held in the collections of the American Antiquarian Society. AAS copy dated ca. 1863, probably 1860.
- Date
- c1857
- Location
- Atwater Kent Museum AKM 54.8.1
- Title
- Dr. George Stuart's botanical syrup and vegetable pills, the greatest family medicine in the world Laboratory no. 254, Race St. Philadelphia
- Description
- Advertisement containing an exterior view of the three-and-one-half story storefront on the 700 block of Race Street bordered by paragraphs of advertising text, including notice of prices that ranged from 25 cents to one dollar per box or bottle. Signage above the large central showcase window lists several diseases and ailments cured by "Dr. G. Stuart's Syrup and Vegetable Pills." Infirmities include consumption, dysentery, chills and fevers, piles, colds, coughs, bronchitis, "tumours," "erysipelas," neuralgia, and "general and nervous debility &c. &c." Shadowy views of branches, leaves, and decanters are visible in the window. Several male character types, of different ages, class, and ethnicity, holding banners inscribed with testimonials, gather around laborers loading a "Botanical [Syr]up" crate onto a horse-drawn wagon in front of the store. Figures include a dandy, Quaker, father and son, and a Native American, many of whom also hold bottles. The testimonials cite the customer's supplying of certificates of cure and their attesting to Dr. Stuart's syrup and pills as cures for cancer, dyspepsia, scrofula, and colds. Paragraphs of advertising text promote "Vegetable Pills, composed entirely of herbs" that were "intended to operate....on the whole system"; "Rheumatic Liniment," which has been used by the medical Faculty in cases of small pox..."; "Vermifuge for Worms, made with particular reference to children"; "Botanical Syrup composed entirely of herb & free minerals," that "in no instance ever failed to do what it was intended to accomplish"; and "Pile & Cancer Salve" that are the "best remedies that were ever in use..." Advertisement also includes two large-scale details showing bottles inscribed with product advertisements for "Dr. Stuart's Rheumatic Liniment," "Cancer salve," "Salve Sure Cure for Piles Price $1 per Box," "Botanical Syrup" and "Dr. Stuart's Vegetable Pills.", Paragraphs of advertising text promote "Vegetable Pills, composed entirely of herbs" that were "intended to operate....on the whole system"; "Rheumatic Liniment," which has been used by the medical Faculty in cases of small pox..."; "Vermifuge for Worms, made with particular reference to children"; "Botanical Syrup composed entirely of herb & free minerals," that "in no instance ever failed to do what it was intended to accomplish"; and "Pile & Cancer Salve" that are the "best remedies that were ever in use..." Advertisement also includes two large-scale details showing bottles inscribed with product advertisements for "Dr. Stuart's Rheumatic Liniment," "Cancer salve," "Salve Sure Cure for Piles Price $1 per Box," "Botanical Syrup" and "Dr. Stuart's Vegetable Pills.", Date from Poulson inscription on recto., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 187, Wainwright retrospective conversion project, edited.
- Date
- [April 1849]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **W98 [P.2147]
- Title
- [Road to Philadelphy]
- Description
- Racist caricature simultaneously mocking and condoning the pretentiousness and bigotry of early 19th century Philadelphia Quakers toward their "social inferiors." Shows a Philadelphia road in front of a small home with an open picket fence and a visitor arriving on horseback. In front of the fence, a dark skinned traveler, possibly an Irishman or African American, with buck teeth and carrying a knapsack and a walking stick, asks a rotund white Quaker man and his attractive prim and proper daughter, "I say, this isn't the road to Philadelphy, honey, is it?" The father responds indignantly to the "Friend," that he is not only asking a question, but also telling a lie, and of course it is the road., Attributed to E.W. Clay., Title and publication information supplied by Wainwright., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 652, Clay, born in Philadelphia, was the most prolific caricaturist of the Jacksonian era. He became well known for his racist popular series, "Life in Philadelphia," published from 1828 until 1832, which mocked upwardly mobile African American Philadelphians as ineptly attempting to imitate the white middle class., Nancy Reynolds Davison's E.W. Clay: American political caricaturist of the Jacksonian era (PhD. diss., The University of Michigan, 1980), p. 76, 358. (LCP Print Room Uz, A423.O)., LCP holds duplicate trimmed print: W315., Gift of William Helfand, 1998., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
- Creator
- Clay, Edward Williams, 1799-1857, artist
- Date
- [1830 or 1831]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *W315 [P.9576]
- Title
- Terrible conflagration and destruction of the steam-boat "New Jersey," On the River Delaware, opposite Philadelphia, on the night of Saturday, March 15th, 1856, between 8 and 9 o'clock, by which dreadful calamity sixty-one lives were lost. Names of all on board
- Description
- Dramatic view of the steamboat engulfed in flames and smoke, the captain still at the helm as the passengers escape into the icy river. Panicked-looking passengers jump into the water already teeming with disaster victims, including an African American man, who thrash, swim, and attempt to stay upon and assist others onto cakes of ice, debris, and a single rowboat. Rescuers from the nearby wharf, including firemen, work in a frantic manner and desperately throw a rope to a white woman standing on an ice floe. Also shows a horse on the fire engulfed deck and a white woman propelled by a flame off of the rear of the boat. A sign for "Baths" is visible on the riverbank in the background. Contains the names of the 107 white and "colored" dead, missing, and saved passengers in three columns below the image. Captained by Ebenezer Corson, the "New Jersey," on mid-voyage to Camden from Philadelphia via an alternate elongated route due to heavy ice, caught fire as a result of defective boilers, a fireplace, and brick work. With the fire spreading rapidly, Corson retreated to Arch Street Wharf in Philadelphia, and came within thirty feet of the pier when the pilot house collapsed leaving the boat unmanned and out of control. Corson survived by leaping ashore before the uncontrolled ship drifted back out on the river., Title from item., Date supplied by Wainwright., Copyrighted by A. Pharazin., Philadelphia on Stone, Purchase 1965., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
- Date
- [1856]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *W478 [7541.F]
- Title
- Funeral Car, used at the obesequies of President Lincoln, in Philadelphia, April 22nd, 1865 Designed and built by E.S. Earley, Undertaker, south east corner of Tenth and Green Streets, Philadelphia
- Description
- Scene depicting the procession of the catafalque transporting the flower covered casket with President Lincoln to Independence Hall. Funeral officials, attired in black suits and top hats, attend the open air funeral car with canopy, draped in black cloth, and drawn by eight horses. Mourners line the city street including an African American man and woman., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 289, Reproduced in Edwin Wolf's Philadelphia: Portrait of an American city (Philadelphia: The Library Company of Philadelphia in cooperation with Camino Books, 1990), p. 221., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1971, p. 43., Purchase 1970., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Charles Tholey, Augustus Tholey, and their father, probably named Michael, worked as lithographers, engravers, and pastel portraitists in Philadelphia in the mid 19th century.
- Creator
- Tholey (Firm), artist
- Date
- [1865]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **W146 [7929.F]
- Title
- Grigg Block, North Fourth Street, Philadelphia
- Description
- View of the active business block containing and named after Grigg, Elliot, & Co., the largest and most prosperous publishing firm in the city that was founded by John Grigg in 1823 and purchased by J. B. Lippincott in 1849. Shows the block of buildings (10-20 North Fourth Street) covered in signage and including Barcroft, Beaver & Co., dry good dealers and S. M. Day, wholesale combs, brush and fancy goods trimmings (10); Goff & Peterson, importers and manufacturers of saddlery, carriage, and harness trimmings (12); Grigg, Elliot & Co. (14); C. H. & Geo. Abbott, dealers and importers of hardware and cutlery and C. Ahrenfeldt & Co., importers of toys & fancy goods (16); C. B. Lassell & Co., hats and caps and Charles Wingate, dealer in shoes, boots, and palm leaf hats (18); and Edwin & John Tams, importers and dealers of china, earthenware, and glass (20). Patrons exit and enter the various storefronts; delivery men, including an African American man, haul, load, and remove goods from horse-drawn and push carts; laborers load goods into shop storage cellars and use a pulley to raise a large cask; store clerks inspect and open newly arrived packages on the sidewalk; a horse-drawn dust settling machine passes in the street; and artisans and merchandise are visible in several of the shops' upper floor windows. Partial views of the adjacent buildings and a nearby alley with a laborer and push cart are also visible., Title from item., Date from Poulson inscription on recto: Dec. 1848., Contains advertisements for six of the depicted businesses below the image., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 331, 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., lithographer
- Date
- [1848]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **W 162 [P.2077]