Two volume set of albums containing predominately cartes de visite photographic portraits of prominent American 19th-century figures in politics, education, and the arts. Portraits depict actors, artists, authors, Congressmen, educators, governors, military leaders, physicians, publishers, religious leaders, social reformers, scientists, and U.S. presidents and their spouses. Includes mostly vignette and bust-length portraits and a small number of full length portraits. Also contains a small number of trimmed portrait engravings, tintypes, and a photo-collage depicting evangelist D. L. Moody with the under photograph copyrighted 1877. Small number of sitters are unidentified., Men sitters include P. T. Barnum; Henry Ward Beecher; John Brown; Ned Buntline; Samuel Clemens; Jefferson Davis; O. S. Fowler; Oliver Wendell Holmes; Abraham Lincoln; Samuel Morse; Thomas Nast; Hiram Powers; Winfield Scott; Gerrit Smith; Cornelius Vanderbilt; John Wanamaker; Brigham Young; Native American chiefs Ouray, Spotted Tail, and Sitting Bull; and African Americans Frederick Douglass and performer "Blind" Tom. Women sitters include presidential spouses Frances Cleveland and Lucretia Garfield; reformers Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull; authors Louisa May Alcott, Helen Hunt (Jackson), Harriet Beecher Stowe; sculptors Harriet Hosmer and Vinnie Ream; and performers Maria Albani, Charlotte Cushman, and Kate Field., Title from item's cover., Photographers include Mathew Brady, E. & H. T. Anthony; Jeremiah Gurney; and George Kendall Warren., Majority of sitters identified by a manuscript note on the album page or on portrait or an inscribed label., Brown leather bindings with gilt, stamped in gilt on front boards: Volume I: American Celebrities. Vol. I.; Volume II: American Celebrities. Vol. II. Stamped in gilt on spines: Album., Purchase 1985., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., See "American Celebrities Album" item-level records for digital images of all identified individual sitters.
Date
[ca. 1870-ca. 1890]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.9100.1 & 2]
Two volume set of albums containing predominately cartes-de-visite photographic portraits of prominent American 19th-century figures in politics, education, and the arts, ca. 1870.
In Griswold, R.W.The Republican Court, or, American society in the days of Washington. New and rev. ed. (New York, 1856), plate preceding p. 69., Three-quarter length portrait of Mrs. Madison standing in front of a curtain., Another portrait appears in Hunt, L. The American biographical sketch book (New York, 1848), plate opposite p. 339.
In Griswold, R.W. The Republican Court, or, American society in the days of Washington. New and rev. ed. (New York, 1856), plate opposite p. 169., Three-quarter length portrait of Mrs. Adams seated in front of a fireplace mantel and vase filled with flowers, holding flowers in her right hand, wearing a full dress and pearl necklace.
In Griswold, R.W. The Republican Court, or, American society in the days of Washington. New and rev. ed. (New York, 1856), frontispiece., Three-quarter length portrait of Mrs. Washington, standing outdoors, surrounded by foliage.
In Griswold, R.W. The Republican Court, or, American society in the days of Washington. New and rev. ed. (New York, 1856), plate preceding p. 55., Three-quarter length portrait of Mrs. Hamilton, seated in front of a curtain, holding a folded fan, hands resting in her lap., Another portrait appears in Hunt, L. The American biographical sketch book (New York, 1848), plate opposite p. 326.
In The national portrait gallery of distinguished Americans (Philadelphia 1840), v.4, plate opposite entry. Also appears in other editions of this title. Note that by the 1852 edition fewer portraits of women are included. This portrait is included., Facsimile signature: Louisa Catherine Adams., Three-quarter length portrait of Mrs. Adams, wearing necklace and decorative hair comb, holding glove, with draped lace shawl; seated by window., Another portrait appears in an untitled plate containing five separate portraits, Godey’s lady’s book 45 (August, 1852), frontispiece.
Separately issued print., Attributed to Francis Kearny, who engraved the portrait of Andrew Jackson that Joseph How published (as a companion piece?)., Full-length portrait of the First Lady seated in an armchair, holding a fan and a book.