Series of illustrated trade cards promoting confectioners Croft, Wilbur & Co. and depicting children performing a variety of activities, including two white girls playing tug-of-war over a wrapped piece of candy; and boys and girls eating sweets, including a white boy eating a candy stick while holding his dog on a leash. Also shows flowers; a courting white boy and girl couple sitting on a log; two white boy clowns dancing, playing a drum, and strutting a homemade pitchfork; and a man in Colonial attire popping out of a large cracker or bon-bon and dumping candy to white woman who catches it in her skirt. Racist card depicting an African American boy, portrayed in caricature, and a white girl on a candy stick seesaw. In the left, shows the white girl attired in a large, white bonnet; a yellow dress with red polka dots; a blue and white checked smock; orange stockings; and brown shoes, sitting on a red and white striped candy stick. In the right, the barefooted African American boy, attired in an orange shirt and gray pants, sits on the other side of the candy see saw. The fulcrum is a piece of chocolate. Founded in Philadelphia in 1865 by Samuel Croft and Henry Oscar Wilbur, Croft, Wilbur & Co. divided into H.O. Wilbur & Sons and Croft and Allen in 1884., Title supplied by cataloger., Four prints printed by E. Ketterlinus & Co., Includes two prints [1975.F.120 and 1974.F.141] with advertising text printed on versos., Gift of Emily Phillips, 1883., RVCDC, 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., Digitized.
Date
[ca. 1880]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department trade card - Croft [1975.F.120; 1975.F.141; 1975.F.145; 1975.F.168; 1975.F.176; 1975.F.178; 1975.F.182a; 1975.F.196; 1975.F.210]