New drawing album [graphic].
Title
New drawing album
Description
Friendship album of Helen Frances Baxter containing circa 60 entries, predominantly contributed while she was a student at Hudson Female Academy during the early 1860s. Entries include original and transcribed poems, prose, and essays; miniature watercolor, pencil and ink sketches; and ruled designs in pencil to resemble mosaics of square calling cards. Most of the entries are signed or contain the initials of the contributor, some noted as completed in Texas. Several entries also include or are entirely composed of vignette paper photograph portraits, predominantly bust-length and depicting young women. Topics of the entries include remembrance, friendship, mortality, religion and allusions to the literary works Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" (p. [99]) (racialized allusion) and Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" and Clement Clarke Moore's "Night Before Christmas" (p. [161-165]). Sketches depict scenes of nature (trees, a waterfall), a cottage, stone ruins, and “crossticks” and are often inserted into four slots in the corresponding page. Mosaics sometimes include names and addresses and/or portrait photographs. Also contains 10 lithographs depicting a composition of a scroll bordered by a type of flower, including lily, tulip, convolvulus, and rose. Lithographs also include printed sentimental prose describing the depicted flower. A small piece of paper with pasted down dried leaves and a final page of bon mots, including “All things lovely have an end. So has this book of yours my friend” also comprise the album., Contributors include Alba K. Fellows (p. [25-26]), Mary Phipps (later Foster) (Hudson, NY) (p. [39]), Sarah Vanderzee (Coeymans, NY) ( p. [55, 141]), William H. Morrison (Hudson, NY) (p. [59)], Eva C. Platt (p. [95]), Angie Smalley (Carmel, NY) (p. [31, 166-167], and Emma V. Claflin (later Parmalee)(Philadelphia) (p. [152]). Hudson Female Academy, established by Reverend John B. Hague in 1851 and under his administration during the 1860s, was a four-year academy for young women in Hudson, NY. The course of study included Mathematics, English Grammar, "Philosophy of Nautral History," Latin, Physiology, Vocal Music, Composition, "Guizot's Civilization," Chemistry, Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, French, German, Drawing, and Painting., Lacquered papier mâché binding with painted imagery depicting a bouquet of flowers framed by filigree, and accented with inlaid mother of pearl., Title from title page: New Drawing Album. J. C. Riker, publisher., Contains presentation page on p. [2]: Hand-colored lithograph signed Lith. Of Sarony & Major, N. Y. and depicting an open scroll of paper bordered by flowers and with text “Presented to.” Imprint: Published by J. C. Riker, 129 Fulton St., N. York., Contains inscription in pencil on p. [9]: Receive me with a smile,/As to each friend [?],/Detain me but a little while,/Then send the wanderer home., Contains presentation page on p. [13]: Hand-colored lithograph signed Lith. Of Sarony & Major, N. Y. and depicting an open scroll of paper bordered by flowers and with text “Presented to” [Miss Helen Frances Baxter, 12th May 155 by J.H.P]. Imprint: Published by Riker, Thorne &Co, 129 Fulton St., New York., Contains gilt marbled end papers., Contains some color paper pages., Gift of Michael Zinman, 2014., List of contributors and transcription of album entries available at repository., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Possibly compiled by Helen Fisher Baxter (1843- 1920) of Fishkill, later Hughsonville, N.Y. She worked as a music teacher in 1880 and died in Wappingers, N.Y. in 1920.
Creator
Baxter, Helen Frances
Date
[1855-1875, bulk 1860-1861]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2014.79]
Original & selected poetry &c. [graphic] / Amy Matilda Cassey.
Title
Original & selected poetry &c
Description
Friendship album of Amy Matilda Cassey, a middle-class African American woman active in the antislavery movement and African American cultural community, containing contributions dating from 1833 until 1856. Contains original and transcribed poems, prose, and essays on topics including slavery, womanhood, religion, friendship, female refinement, death, and love. Also contains drawings, watercolors, and gouaches of flowers and a rustic, residential scene, possibly in New York. Contributors, including many women from the antebellum African American elite community, are prestigious reformers and abolitionists active in the anti-slavery, scholarly, educational, and cultural community of the antebellum North, including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Baltimore., Contains the following contributions: entry by African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, dated Philadelphia 1850, about his "coarse" contribution in an album of "refined" entries; an original sonnet, "Fallen Bird," and essay, "The Abolition Cause," by anti-slavery activist, author, and editor, William Lloyd Garrison, dated Philadelphia 1833; floral watercolors and calligraphed poems by Philadelphia Quaker activist, educator, and artist Sarah Mapps Douglass; essay, "Moral Reform," dated Philadelphia 1834, by Harrisburg businessman and activist William Whipper; calligraphed version of Washington Irving's poem, "The Wife," by New York African American engraver Patrick Henry Reason dated New York 1839; poem about "Friendship" dated 1837 by anti-slavery activist Robert Purvis; prose on faith penned in 1853 by women right's activist and abolitionist Lucy Stone;, floral watercolors, poems and prose on friendship, womanhood, abolition, and remembrance by Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society associates Rebecca Buffum, Susan C. Wright, and sisters Hannah L. Stickney and Mary T. Stickney, and sisters Mary Forten (p.10), Margaretta Forten, and Sarah Forten Purvis, as well as their sister-in-law Mary Virginia Wood Forten (p.22); memorials to his deceased wife and daughter by Baltimore African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne written in 1849; and an essay by abolitionist Reverend Isiah George DeGrasse dated Bridgewater 1836. Additional contributions by Baltimore anti-slavery activist Emily Willson; anti-slavery activists Ann Warren Weston and Elizabeth Le Brun (Stickney) Gunn; Philadelphia barber and activist John Chew; abolitionist James Miller M'Kim; University of Glasgow trained activist James McCune Smith; Boston reformer Wendell Phillips; C.L.R., possibly Charles L. Reason, abolitionist and brother of engraver Patrick Henry Reason; A.W.H., possibly Quaker abolitionist Anna W. Hopper, and E.G., possibly Quaker abolitionist Elizabeth Garrigues., Also includes sketches and a poem by probably Lydia A. Bustill and unattributed watercolors and sketches possibly by Amy Matilda Cassey., Title from item., Inclusive range of dates inferred from entries inscribed with dates., Embossed and gilt morocco binding with blue moiré silk doublures., Lib. Company Annual Report 1998, p. 25-35., Research file available at repository., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Cassey, an abolitionist, temperance and civil rights activist and founding member of the multiracial Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and the African American literary and science society, Gilbert Lyceum, was the daughter of New York black community leader, Reverend Peter Williams. She was the wife of Philadelphia businessman and civil rights activist Joseph Cassey, and later married Boston anti-slavery lecturer Charles Lenox Remond.
Creator
Cassey, Amy Matilda, 1808-1856
Date
[ca. 1833-ca. 1856]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764]
Original & selected poetry &c. [graphic] / Martina Dickerson.
Title
Original & selected poetry &c
Description
Album belonging to Martina Dickerson, a young middle-class African American Philadelphian, probably created as a pedagogical exercise, with twenty-two contributions dating from 1840 until around 1846. Contains original and transcribed poems, prose, and essays on topics including love, friendship, sympathy, courage, and female refinement. Also includes drawings, primarily of flowers. Identified contributors are mainly Black elite scholars active in the African American anti-slavery and cultural community of mid-19th century Philadelphia., Contains the following contributions: calligraphed title page by abolitionist James Forten, Jr.; prose on "Literature," "The Album," and "The Year" by entrepeneur and abolitionist James Forten, Sr. or his son, James, Jr.; prose entitled "Perserverance" by tailor, abolitionist, and civil rights activist John C. Bowers; prose, sketches, and watercolors by Quaker abolitionist, educator, and artist, Sarah Mapps Douglass; watercolor and transcribed poem, "The First Steamboat on the Missouri," by Sarah's brother, artist, community activist, and abolitionist, Robert Douglass; essay entitled "Sympathy" by William Douglass, pastor and historian of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Philadelphia; transcription from Wordsworth's "Excursion" by educator and anti-slavery activist Charles L. Reason; gouache of a bunch of flowers by A.H.H., probably Ada Howell Hinton, an African American educator and anti-slavery activist; and prose, poems, and gouache by Mary M. MacFarland, V.E. Macarty, Y.J. Grice, Rebecca F. Peterson, H.D. Shorter, C.D.R., and J.F.V., Title from item., Inclusive range of dates inferred from entries inscribed with dates., Embossed and gilt morocco binding., Lithograph title page, "Flowers," containing flower illustration hand-colored with gouache and watercolor., Blank album published in London by Wm. & Hy. Rock., Lib. Company. Annual Report 1993, p. 17-25., Research file available at repository., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Dickerson, a pupil of African American educator Sarah Mapps Douglass, was the daughter of African American activists, Martin and Adelia Dickerson, and step-father Samuel Van Brackle.
Creator
Dickerson, Martina, 1829-1905
Date
[ca. 1840-ca. 1846]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Martina Dickerson album [13859.Q]