Search results

Title: Turning the tables on the overseer
Description: Abolitionist print depicting a group of enslaved African American people about to whip their white plantation overseer, who has been bound to a tree on the plantation grounds. Before the plantation overseer, the African American man holds the whip and pulls up his sleeve as the enslaved man next to him takes of his hat in a mock gesture of respect. Smiling men, women, and children of all ages stand, sit, and lean on a fence, surrounding the overseer in anticipation of his whipping., Title from item., First published in New York Illustrated news, November 28, 1863 (LCP **Per D 8.5, 1863). Later published as a loose print by the African American press, Robert and Thomas Hamilton, possibly the first Black press to publish separate prints., LCP exhibition catalogue: African American Miscellany p. 38., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of Civil War caricatures and photographs. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: [1863]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC-Slavery [5780.F]

Title: Journey of a slave from plantation to the battlefield
Description: Collection of twelve titled album (carte-de-visite size) cards depicting the evolution of the life of an African American man from enslavement to a Union soldier. "In the Cotton field" and "The Christmas Week" show his life on the plantation from which he is sold and separated from his family in "The Sale" and "The Parting: 'Buy us too'." His new enslaver whips him in "The Lash," for which he then retaliates in "Blow for Blow." He hides "In the Swamp" and is finally "Free!" to become a Union soldier and "Stand up a Man" to fight in the battlefield to "Make Way for Liberty!" He is struck down in "Victory!" for Liberty, depicted as a white woman, who states as she mourns over his body, "He Died for Me!", Title from series title., Publication information inferred from copyright statement: Entered according to the act of the year 1863 by William A. Stephens in the Clerks' Office of the Dist. Court of the U.S. for the E. Dist. of Pa., Attributed to James Fuller Queen after Henry Louis Stephens., Henry Louis Stephens was a native Philadelphia caricaturist, book, and magazine illustrator who worked in New York in the mid-19th century for the periodical "Frank Leslie's." His brother William Allen Stephens served as his business manager., Described in Gathering history: The Marian S. Carson Collection of Americana. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1999), p. 26., Original wrapper for the card set held in the collections of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [LOT 5174], Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of humorous caricatures and photographs. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Copyright by William A. Stephens, 1120 Girard Avenue, Philadelphia., Description revised 2023., Access points revised 2023., Queen, a Philadelphia lithographer and pioneer chromolithographer known for his attention to detail, served in the Civil War militia from 1862 until 1863, and created several lithographs with Civil War subjects.
Creator: Queen, James Fuller, 1820 or 21-1886, artist
Date: 1863
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Henry Louis Stephens Collection [(5)5780.F.56m-p; (5)5780.F.57a-h]

Title: Emancipation Freedom for all, both black and white!
Description: Print depicting the Emancipation Proclamation for both African Americans and whites including equal opportunity to education. Depicts Lincoln raising his right hand and holding the "Emancipation Proclamation" in his left hand in the center between a poor white family and an enslaved African American family. Both families, attired in torn and worn clothing, stand and kneel as they hold their clasped hands up toward Lincoln, who treads upon broke shackles and a serpent. A "Spelling Book" lies on the ground near them. In the background, Union soldiers stop a white man enslaver from whipping a shackled and enslaved African American woman and children enter "Public School, No. 1." From the roof of the school waves a flag inscribed "Education to all Classes." Contains text from the Proclamation above the image, "and by virtue of the power and for the purpose of the aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves, within designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be free!", Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to the act of Congress A.D. 1865 by J.L. Magee in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania., Magee, a lithographer, painter, and cartoonist, established his own firm in Philadelphia in 1850., LCP exhibition catalogue: Negro History, p. 77., Accessioned 1999., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: 1865
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Emancipation [P.9702]

Title: Specimen sheet Union, patriotic and humorous designs upon envelopes
Description: Advertisement containing twenty-five examples of Civil War envelope vignettes published by King & Baird. Majority of the vignettes include titles and slogans. Designs depict the American flag; liberty, the American eagle; soldiers (including the martyred Colonel Ellsworth); caricatures of Brigadier General Henry A. Wise (former governor of Virginia), Jefferson Davis, and the Southern gentry; a portrait of Washington; an abolitionist scene showing the whipping of an African American man entitled "The persuasive eloquence of the Sunny South"; and a racist caricature of an African American man on all fours carrying a whip and asking in the vernacular, "Whar's Jeff Davis?" Also contains a description of the envelopes and shipping information, as well as the scale of prices ranging from "25 Assorted Envelopes, (25 kinds)" at 25 cents to 1000 at 5 dollars., Title from item., Text printed on recto: Single copies of this sheet will be mailed free of postage, upon receipt of six cents, by King & Baird, Book and Job Printers, 607 Sansom St., Philadelphia., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of miscellaneous Civil War prints. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886 [5786.F.161a]. Accessioned 2002 [P.2002.45]., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Creator: King & Baird
Date: [ca. 1863]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Civil War [5786.F.161a; P.2002.45]

Main menu