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Title: Les pilules du Diable
Description: Hand-colored tissue stereograph depicts interior view of shop where skeletons surround a man who is passed out or dead in a chair. The Devil stands behind a counter holding out a container to the man, presumably containing the substance that cause(d) the man's demise. A skeleton stirs a concoction in a large pot behind the devil figure. Skeletons on the street are visible through the open doorway., Title on negative., Yellow mount with rounded corners and embossed decorative pattern surrounding images., Diables stereographs, also known as Journey into Hell stereographs, were among the most popular tissue stereographs issued from 1868 to 1874. They often depicted earthly sins that could lead one to hell., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Gift of William Helfand.
Date: [ca. 1870]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department stereo - unidentified - Genre [P.2009.13.5]

Title: Riot in Philadelphia July 7, 1844
Description: Discrepant news print showing a battle scene from the second series of anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia in July 1844 that stemmed from the defensive arming of St. Philip de Neri Catholic Church in preparation of a July 4 Nativist party parade. Shows the melee around the city militia under attack from the Protestant rioters depicted as gentlemen in top hats and coats. In the foreground, a rioter picks up a brick as his compatriots fire at a charging band of militiamen near an illuminated lamppost. One soldier lays fallen on the ground as a rioter collapses over him. To the right, a mother flees with her children as men fight hand-to-hand in front of a group of onlookers. The crowd watches another band of militia attempt to guard the targeted Catholic church that is marked "I.H.S. A.D., 1840." In the background, rioters and the militia fire cannons at one another. In actuality, rioters gained control and set the church on fire by the morning of July 7, causing the militia to try and clear a neighboring street on which the combat and cannon fire occurred. The riot, which killed 15, was quelled by the state militia late that evening., Not in Wainwright., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 650, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bb 892 B 921, LCP exhibit catalog: Made in America, entry #63.
Creator: Bucholzer, H., artist
Date: [1844]
Location: Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bb 892 B 921

Title: The horrible murder of the Dearing Family The above picture is a correct representation of the interior of the the barn and appearance of the murdered family as sketched by the artist shortly after the discovery of the murder, the murderer is in the act of dragging the bodies of Mrs. Dearing and the children into the adjoining corn crib, seen through the window to the right of the picture. Names of the murdered family: Christopher Dearing, aged 38 years; his wife, Julia Dearing, aged 45 years; their son, John Dearing, aged 8 years; their son, Thomas Dearing, aged 6 years; their daughter, Anna Dearing, aged 4 years; their daughter, Emily Dearing, aged 2 years; his niece [sic], Elizabeth Dolan, aged 25 years; and Cornelius Cary, aged 17 years
Description: News print showing the Philadelphia family murdered by their farmhand Anton Probst at their farm at Jones Lane in South Philadelphia on April 7, 1866. Probst, his face partially covered by the wall above the passageway, drags the body of one of the boys through it to the crib. The goateed murderer drags the boy by his feet, face up, from the pile of corpses laying on the hay covered floor. To the left of the image, Mrs. Dearing lays face down and covered by the bodies of her older children, who lay face up and with slit throats. Her hand is outstretched and resting on the baby, whose throat is also slit. To the right, in front of a barrel below a window, Mr. Dearing lays face up, a slit in his throat, his face covered by hay, and next to family friend Miss Dolan. She lays face down, her arms outstretched and her cross visible from beneath her body. Also shows, a pitchfork and ax propped against the wall in the background across from an opening to another section of the barn where cows stand in stalls. The murdered farmhand, Cary, is not depicted. Probst, a German immigrant and swindler, was a disgruntled former farmhand of the Dearings who murdered the family by hammer and ax for revenge and money. He was convicted in May 1866 and executed the following month at Moyamensing Prison for the largest murder in Philadelphia at that time., Not in Wainwright., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 361, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bb 892 D 285
Date: [1866]
Location: Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bb 892 D 285

Title: Explosion and burning of the cartridge factory, cor. Tenth and Read [sic], March 2[9]th 1862
Description: Disaster scene showing the aftermath of the explosion of the factory of Professor Samuel Jackson located in South Philadelphia. Shows people fleeing, trapped, and engulfed in flames at the ruins of the burning factory. In the foreground, a man rushes to cover a man's body that has had its head and arm amputated; men throw buckets of water and blankets on women on fire; individuals carry the wounded; comfort the survivors; rush in with buckets; and hose the fire. Also shows a man looking in horror from a train car in the left of the image and debris flying in the air and lying on the ground. Over 15 people, including the son of the proprietor, perished in the explosion of the factory that was contracted to produce one and a half million experimental "solid water proof patent cartridges" during the Civil War. Jackson, a Philadelphia pyrotechnist and inventor, began the manufacture of fireworks in Philadelphia in 1837. He continued in pyrotechnics until 1887, when he began to manufacture danger signals for railroads. During his pyrotechnic career, a number of his establishments were destroyed through explosions., Name of artist supplied by Wainwright., The numeral "9" printed in the reverse in the date in the title., Inscribed on recto: North of Moyamensing Prison. Philada., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 215, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bb 83 C 328
Creator: Magee, John L., artist
Date: [1862]
Location: Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bb 83 C 328

Title: The Cincinnati platform, or the way to make a new state in 1856
Description: Antislavery cartoon criticizing presidential nominees James Buchanan and John C. Breckenridge's support of pro-slavery forces over freesoilers in the violent political struggle in "Bleeding Kansas" during the Democratic Convention of 1856 in Cincinnati. Depicts a pro-slavery militia, carrying a flag labeled "Kansas and Liberty," that has marshalled a group of shackled, enslaved African American men who wear loin-cloths. Several of them clasp their hands together and look with pleading expressions at the white militiaman, behind them, and who carries a whip in his left hand and drives them forward. They march toward a settlement, which has a "Free Soil and Fremont" flag where homes burn and settlers and cattle lay wounded or dead. In the right is the corpse of an assaulted, white mother, who lies on the ground with her breasts exposed. Her naked, dead baby lies face down over her left arm. In the upper left, Buchanan and Breckenridge, standing in front of seated convention delegates on a platform, oversee the violence and comment about the freesoilers being a curse to the country who would surely leave if forced to work for "10 cents a day.", Title from item., Date inferred from content., Copyright statement printed on recto: Entered in according to act of congress in the Clerk’s Office of the district Court for the Eastern District of Penna. By I. [sic.] Childs., Originally part of American political caricatures, likely a scrapbook, accessioned 1899. Collection primarily comprised of gifts from Samuel Breck, John A. McAllister, and James Rush., 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.
Date: [1856]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1856-10W [5760.F.95]

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