Life in Philadelphia (London).
Title
Life in Philadelphia (London)
Description
Collection of social caricatures lampooning the pretensions of early 19th-century middle-class Philadelphians, mainly the city's growing community of free African Americans. Influenced by an increasing fascination with American culture and a growing racism stemming from the abolition of slavery in England, the African American characters are depicted with grotesque features and manners, wearing outlandish clothes, and speaking in patois and malapropisms to be portrayed as ineptly attempting to mimic white high society. Subject matter of the caricatures include absurd scenes of courtship and displays of etiquette on the street, at residences, at society balls, and in allegory; fashion; promenades; the abolition of slavery; the election of President Andrew Jackson; tea parties; and depictions of African Americans at work., British reprint of E.W. Clay's "Life in Philadelphia" series with ten of the original fourteen prints redrawn by William Summers, etched with aquatint by Charles Hunt, and published by Harrison Isaacs in London in the early 1830s. W.H. Isaacs continued issuing the prints altering the original content of the series by adding new subjects and removing the white caricatures. Around 1833 engraver and print seller, Gabriel Shire Treager assumed the publication of the series and added six new subjects creating a series of twenty. In 1834, Tregear published a similar series of caricatures in book form without the "Life in Philadelphia" moniker entitled, "Tregear's Black Jokes, being a Series of Laughable Caricatures in the March of Manners amongst Blacks." In 1860, London publisher T. C. Lewis reissued the series of twenty prints. Variants of prints from the series and additional caricatures with similar content; "The Cut Direct," "Sketches of Character. At Home and Abroad," "Philadelphia Dandies," and "The Lay Patroness of Alblacks" have been included as a part of the series., LCP AR [Annual Report] 1967 p. 51-53., LCP AR [Annual Report] 1968 p. 18-20., Nancy Reynolds Davison's E.W. Clay: American Political Caricaturist of the Jacksonian Era (PhD. diss., The University of Michigan, 1980), p. 85-100. (LCP Print Room Uz, A423.O)
Creator
Summers, William, artist
Date
ca. 1831-ca. 1860, bulk 1831-1834
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Life in Philadelphia (London Set)
[Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company tracks under construction to raise grade crossings, Ninth Street above Poplar Street in Philadelphia]
Title
[Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company tracks under construction to raise grade crossings, Ninth Street above Poplar Street in Philadelphia]
Description
View of fenced in railroad tracks under construction with a railroad construction crew in the distance. The project, to raise tracks above street level to prevent pedestrian casualties from Wayne Junction to Spring Garden Street, lasted from 1907 to 1911. Residences and businesses line the street. Inside the fence, pedestrians, including African Americans, look on from and traverse the makeshift dirt walkways. An African American woman looks on from a second story window, Negative inscribed: 10255; 3-7-10; 0-65., Title supplied by cataloger., Manuscript note on verso: Meyers STW 4 23 13., Forms part of: Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company Photograph Collection., Purchase 1989., Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., 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
Harrison, Edward, photographer
Date
March 7, 1910
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company [P.9260.420]