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Title: Just a little Chinaman laundry work fine, will cookie, washee, ironie if you'll be his valentine
Description: Racist caricature of a Chinese man laundry worker holding an iron and an ironing board and bending down towards a rat. In the right, the Chinese man wears a queue hairstyle with a red bow tied at the end of his braid and is attired in a blue tunic with gold trim, black pants, red socks, and green cloth slip-on shoes. He holds an iron in his right hand and an ironing board in his left hand. He bends over and looks down at a rat that runs away. In the left are red hearts and a clothespin. The text is written in pidgin English: Just a little Chinaman laundry work fine, will cookie, washee, ironie if you'll be his valentine., Title from item., Date inferred from medium and content., Series no. printed on verso: Series IV., Library Company copy has manuscript message and address written on verso and is postmarked, Blodgett Mills, N.Y., Feb. 12, P.M. 1906; Syracuse Feb. 13, A.M. 1906. Includes one-cent stamp depicting Benjamin Franklin., RVCDC
Date: [ca. 1906]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department LCP Postcards - Genre - Just [P.2024.11]

Title: L.C. Smith, druggist, (successor to A.W. Rice), Rockville, Conn. Drugs, medicines, toilet requisites, etc., etc. prescriptions compounded day or night. Prices the lowest. Goods strictly pure
Description: Trade card promoting druggist Louis C. Smith and depicting racist caricatures of Chinese men being attacked by dogs. In the left foreground, shows a large dog chained to a doghouse. The Chinese man, wearing a queue hairstyle, a blue tunic and pants, and white, slip-on shoes, looks at the dog in fear. In the right, a Chinese man runs away with his queue flying behind him. In the background, a Chinese man, his back to the viewer, screams and raises both arms up as a white dog bites his bottom. Text written in pidgin English below the image: What d’yer soy? Ha! Ha! John Chinaman he eatie doggie., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Copyright statement printed on recto: Copyrighted, Bufford, Boston., Gift of William H. Helfand., RVCDC
Date: [ca. 1880]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Helfand Patent Medicine Trade Card Collection - Pharmacists - Smith [P.9828.6842]

Title: Old processee starchee no goodee. It smellee rots & makee shirts yellee.” "I will never use any other but the New Process Starch." New Process Starch. Manufactured only by the Firmenich Manufacturing Company, Peoria, Ill
Description: Trade card promoting Firmenich Manufacturing Company and depicting a racist caricature of a Chinese man laundry worker contrasted in a split panel with a white women doing laundry. In the left, the Chinese man, wearing a queue hairstyle and attired in a white tunic and pants and blue cloth slip-on shoes, stands and irons a shirt on a table. He speaks in pidgin English, “Old processee starchee no goodee. It smelle rots and make shirts yellee.” On the floor are two boxes of “Old Process Gloss Starch.” On the table is a bowl of steaming water. A teapot heats on the stove behind him, and clothes hang on the clothesline. In the right, the white woman, attired in a pink dress with a white bow around the neck and white cuffs, stands behind the table ironing. She says, “I will never use any other but the new process starch.” A young white boy hands her a box of “New Process” starch, and two additional boxes lie on the floor in the right. On the table is a bowl of water. A tea kettle steams behind her on the stove. Buildings are visible through a window in the background. Dr. Joseph Firmenich (1828-1903) started a starch company with his two sons, George and Frank. The Firmenich Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1884. The Company opened a glucose plant in Marshalltown, Iowa in 1887. The Company operating into the 20th century., Title from item., Date inferred from dates of operation of business advertised., Advertising text printed on verso: New process starch. This starch is manufactured by a new process, with pure spring water. The light starch and gluten usually found in other starches, especially if made from white corn, are entirely removed and manufactured into other articles. The patents of this process are owned solely by this company. We guarantee all our starch perfectly pure and sweet. This starch, having the light starch and gluten removed, one-third less can be used than any other in the market. Ask your grocer for the new process gloss and corn starch and take no other. Manufactured only by the Firmenich Manufacturing Company. Peoria, Ill., Gift of Linda Kimiko August., RVCDC
Date: [ca. 1885]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department trade cards – Firmenich [P.2023.43.2]

Title: The tables turned You sabe him! Kealney must go!
Description: Political cartoon depicting racist caricatures of Chinese workers heckling Workingmen's Party of California leader Denis Kearney, who is in prison. In the right, shows Kearney, attired in a black-and-white-striped prison uniform with a ball and chain on his ankle, standing and grasping the bars of his cell, which is labeled, “House of Correction, 181.” In the left, a group of Chinese men workers, wearing queue hairstyles and attired in caps and hats, tunics, pants, and cloth slip-on shoes, sit and stand amongst baskets, including two filled with fish. They hold out to Kearney products associated with their employment, including a laundry worker carrying a washboard and offering socks with holes; a fishmonger holding crabs and a fish labeled, “Black Friday,” on a stick; and a man with a cigar in his mouth holding out a bundle of cigars. They mock him in pidgin English, “you sabe him? Kealney must go!” in reference to Kearney’s slogan that he ended every speech with: “The Chinese must go.” In the top left pinned to the wall is a depiction of a donkey and a cart, possibly alluding to Kearney’s draying business. Denis Kearney (1847-1907) was an Irish immigrant who lead the Workingmen’s Party of California on a platform of anti-Chinese hate, blaming the Chinese immigrants for low wages and job scarcity. He was imprisoned in 1877 for inciting a riot., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Text printed on recto: Copyright secured., RVCDC
Date: [ [ca. 1877]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1877 - Tables [P.2025.44]

Title: Day's soap does it Washee, washee, see him rub on his washboard in the tub; see him wash and smile with glee for he's from hard labor free; with Day's soap his work is done when his rivals just begun
Description: Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyrighted 1887 by Day & Frick., Racist metamorphic trade card showing a caricaturized Chinese man laundry worker washing a sheet on a wash board in a washtub. Includes a tab that when pulled lifts the washer's arms up and down to reveal the text "Day Soap" on the wash board. The man wears his hair in a queue and is attired in a long-sleeved, blue collared shirt with buttons down the front, blue pants, and slip-on, cloth shoes. He smiles and looks to the right. The tub rests on a table beside a bar of soap, labeled “Day’s Soap.” On the ground behind the table is a basket of laundry. Sheets hang on a drying line. In the background, the wall has Chinese-stylized decorations including a gold wallpaper depicting birds and fish and a purple and gold wall hanging that reads, “Day’s Soap.” Peter Day founded the Day & Frick soap manufactory firm in 1886. He retired as president of the firm in 1917., Purchased with funds from the Walter J. Miller Trust for the Visual Culture Program., RVCDC, John D. Avil founded the Avil Printing Company (also known as John D. Avil & Co.) in West Philadelphia and managed it from the early 1860s until his death in 1918.
Date: [1887]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department trade card - Day's [P.2012.62.8]

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