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- Title
- Virginia stock
- Description
- Racist, allegorical, satiric print showing a line of enslaved black women and girls, shackled to each other by their wrists, and standing side by side in a tropical setting. The female figures are depicted with exaggerated facial features and short wavy hair. They wear simple pale-colored dresses that fall to their knees, are cinched at the waist, and have long sleeves. The figures look to the distance, at each other, and toward the viewer. Some stand with their feet pigeon-toed or pointed out. Some of the women wear earrings and one of the girls is portrayed with her eyes looking straight up. Coconut trees and greenery are visible in the background., Gabriel Shire Tregear (1801/2-1841) was a British colorist turned print publisher who specialized in series of comic and sporting prints, including "Tregear's Black Jokes" and "Flowers of Ugliness.", RVCDC, Description reviewed 2022., Access points revised 2022.
- Date
- 1836
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Allegories - Flowers [P.2016.45.3]
- Title
- [Pictorial lettersheet containing illustration of "Am I Not a Woman and Sister"]
- Description
- Illustration depicts the enslaved woman, bare-chested, kneeling on one leg, and holding up her chained hands as in prayer., Addressed to Mr. S. T. haulk [sic] Salburry [i.e., Salisbury] South Carolina., Inscribed: Advertised July 1st., Completed in manuscript from Thos. Wall, Granville, Ohio to "Dear Sir" on May 25, 1840. Reads: Dear Sir is this the way you th treat slaves - if so you had better set thith free and Let them go - the load be upon your head at the [bar?] of god. Then god Say all you an [sic] your slaves must come before god and then be juge [sic] at the Bar of god - Set the [?] free and Let he aogo [sic]. Let the slave go free - [?] and I am - Do you [sic] Work yourself., Illustration of a kneeling male slave is a variant of the image popularized by Josiah Wedgwood. Formed in 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade designed and adopted as its seal the image of a supplicant African male slave asking "Am I not a man and a brother?" That same year, Wedgwood, a ceramics manufacturer and member of the Committee, issued the image as a medallion, which was distributed in America. The image became a popular anti-slavery icon and was soon widely reproduced on artifacts and in print in the United States and in Britain. During the 1820s, a female counterpart with the motto “Am I not a woman and a sister?” was created by British abolitionists and quickly embraced in the United States, particularly among women abolitionists., Purchased with funds from the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation., 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., Purchase 2011., Access points revised 2021., Description revised 2021., Reason was an African American artist, engraver and lithographer working in New York City in the 1830s and 1840s.
- Creator
- Reason, Patrick Henry, 1816-1898, engraver
- Date
- [ca. 1835]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Allegories [16971.Q]
- Title
- Bathsheba at bath
- Description
- Lantern slide formerly owned and probably used in art lessons by Philadelphia painter, photographer, and art teacher, Xanthus Smith. Depicts Bathsheba being bathed by an enslaved Black woman outside on the rooftop. In the center, Bathsheba, nude and attired in a jeweled headpiece, a gold necklace, gold bracelets, earrings, and rings, lounges and rests her left elbow on a pillow. Her right hand grasps grapes on a side table. A cloth is draped over her lower body and her right foot is on a marble and golden basin. A Black woman, attired in a blue and gold striped skirt, and a gold necklace, ring, earrings, and bracelets, sits on a step and dries Bathsheba’s left foot with a white cloth and holds a gold mirror up. On the ground beside her are containers of perfumes, soap, or oil. Stone walls with decorative carved flowers, lion sculptures, and red curtains on rods, as well as trees and the blue sky, are visible in the background., Title from label on mount., Part of "Old Testament" series., Gift of Edna Andrade, 1994., 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
- [ca. 1875]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Lantern Slides-Smith, Xanthus [P.9471]
- Title
- Ladies
- Description
- Lantern slide formerly owned and probably used in art lessons by Philadelphia painter, photographer, and art teacher, Xanthus Smith. Depicts a scene set in Roman antiquity of a white woman, attired in a white gown, dancing before upper-class Romans. In the center is a marble veranda with a roof comprised of a red drape with yellow fringe held up by columns. In the veranda, around a table filled with food and drink, a Roman woman and three men lounge and watch the dancer. Behind them, three enslaved Black men and a woman carry wine flasks, pour drinks, and fan. In the left, white men and women musicians play flutes and tambourines. In the background, a peacock and other birds stand and fly on the palatial building decorated with columns, sculpture, and flowers., Title from partially legible label on mount., Number 19 in "Old Roman World" series., Gift of Edna Andrade, 1994., 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
- [ca. 1875]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Lantern Slides - Smith [P.9471]
- Title
- [Print specimens depicting African Americans from the Thomas Richardson and American Bank Note Company scrapbook]
- Description
- Includes predominantly banknote specimens showing enslaved, free, and possibly free African American men, women, and children. Images depict an African American man driver hauling a wagon filled with hay (p. 38); an African American man farm hand tending to horse in a farmyard (p. 38); enslaved men harvesting a field of grain (p. 45); an African American man cart driver hauling bundles up an incline (p. 50); enslaved men picking cotton juxtaposed with a townscape vista (p. 54); African American men workers collecting sap from trees under the view of a white foreman on horseback (p. 61); enslaved men, women, and children cutting and loading sugar cane onto a wagon at a “Sugar Plantation” (p. 66); an African American man driver leading “The Mule Team” on a country road (p. 67); African American men workers “Breaking Hemp” (p. 68); and a proof copy of an illustration from Susan Fenimore Cooper's "Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper" (New York, 1861) depicting a scene by a hearth from “The Spy” with an African American male servant looking over the shoulder of a white woman housekeeper (p. 26). Majority of specimens include roadside scenery or plantation or residential buildings in the background. “Sugar Plantation” view also shows a steamboat on a river in the background., Title supplied by cataloger., Date inferred from the active dates of the partnerships of the printers in the imprints and content., Artists include F. O. C. Darley and Louis Denoce., Printers include American Bank Note Co.; Baldwin, Bald & Cousland; and Bald, Cousland & Co., Some items contain specimen number printed in lower right corner. Includes 131, 144, and 212., RVCDC, Accessioned 2012., 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., Thomas Richardson (b. ca. 1802) was a Philadelphia plate printer who served as the foreman of printing at the Philadelphia branch of the American Bank Note Company formed in 1858. He retired from the trade by 1880.
- Date
- [ca. 1855-ca. 1857]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.2012.6]
- Title
- Official first day of issue. Honoring Harriet Tubman, 1821-1913. Abolitionist. Nurse. Escapded slave. Black Heritage USA Series
- Description
- ArtCraft "First Day Cover" (i.e., designed envelope with a stamp affixed and cancelled on the day the stamp was issued) containing vignette illustrations depicting Harriet Tubman. Shows a half-length portrait of Harriet Tubman and a view of Tubman with Black persons of all ages, their belongings, and horse-drawn carts on a snow-covered clearing., Title from item., Date supplied from research and content., Logo of printer printed in lower left corner: Text "ArtCraft" set on a paint palette with brushes inserted through the hole for the artist's thumb., Image caption: She Guided More Than 300 Slaves to Freedom., Contains ink-stamp postmark: Washington. DC. Feb 1 1978 20013 and cancelled "First Day of Issue" Black Heritage USA color-printed 15-cent stamp after the design of Jerry Pinkney and depicting a portrait of Harriet Tubman and an inset of a view of Tubman and three Black persons riding a donkey-drawn wagon. The Tubman stamp issued in 1978, was the first issued for the Black Heritage Series begun in 1978 by the U.S. Postal Service to recognize "the contribution of Black Americans to the growth and development of the United States.", Mailing label removed., The Washington Press ArtCraft brand was introduced in 1939 for the printing of First Day Covers. The firm stopped producing ArtCraft First Day Covers in 2016., Gift of George R. Allen, 2022.
- Date
- [1978]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department ephemera - envelopes - Poor [P.2019.80.6]
- Title
- Emancipation
- Description
- Reproduction of a George Gardner Fish allegorical painting celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) originally photographed by Boston photographer J. P. Soule. Depicts the white female figure Columbia holding out the Emancipation Proclamation and standing between a kneeling enslaved African American man and woman (attired in a head wrap). The bare-chested man holds up the pole of an American flag, while the woman drapes the flag around her naked body. Columbia, attired in a tiara and drapey gown, also holds a bunch of sprigs of laurel, as well as stands on a whip. A partial view of a wagon wheel is visible in the left background., Title from item., Artist and photographer from copy in the collections of the Library of Congress. LC copy "Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by John Sowle [sic], in clerk's office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.", George Gardner Fish was a Nantucket portrait painter who specialized in pastels. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design between 1858 and 1863., John P. Soule was a Boston photographer who also published stereographs and cartes de visite. He served in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts at the end of the Civil War., Purchased with the Davida T. Deutsch African American History Fund., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
- Date
- [ca. 1863]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department cdv - misc. - Civil War - Genre & sentimental [P.2014.22]
- Title
- The ( Fort) Monroe doctrine
- Description
- Abolitionist cartoon depicting enslaved African Americans fleeing to Fort Monroe, which was occupied by Union General Benjamin F. Butler who had declared freedom seekers to be "contraband" of war. In the right, a white man Virginia enslaver brandishes a whip and says, "come back you black rascal." A bare-chested, barefooted, African American man attired in white shorts, responds in the vernacular, "can't come back nohow massa Dis chile's contraban." To the right of the enslaver, a barefooted African American man, attired in a brimmed hat, a white collared shirt, and striped pants with the cuffs rolled up, watches as he leans on a hoe. A number of other African American freedom seekers run toward the Fort, including a woman with a child., Title from item., Date of publication supplied by Weitenkampf., During the Civil War, the U.S. government declared African American freedom seekers as “contraband of war.”, Purchase 1986., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Digitized by Alexander Street Press for Images of the American Civil War., 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
- [1861]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1861-3W [P.9127]
- Title
- 'Conquering prejudice,' or 'fulfilling a constitutional duty with alacrity.'
- Description
- Antislavery print depicting the pursuit of a freedom seeker in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Shows a barefooted, enslaved African American woman, portrayed with exaggerated features, and attired in a head kerchief and a short-sleeved dress. She runs holding her child and screams for help, "My God! My child! Will no one help! Is there no mercy!" Chasing her are Daniel Webster admiring himself for performing a "disagreeable duty," a marshal holding a gun and handcuffs and exclaiming a sense of relief over Webster's interpretation of the Constitution, and two dogs. In the background is a church and courthouse., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Lib. Company. Annual Report, 1978, p. 54-5., Purchase 1978., 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., Kramer was a German born painter and lithographer who worked with the Rosenthals, a prominent Philadelphia family of lithographers from 1850 and through the early 1850s.
- Creator
- Kramer, Peter, 1823-1907, artist
- Date
- [ca. 1851]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1851- Con [8433.F]
- Title
- London Coffee House
- Description
- Exterior view of the coffee house and merchants' exchange at the southwest corner of Front and Market streets in Philadelphia during the colonial era. An auction of enslaved African American people occurs outside the coffee house and pedestrians traverse the sidewalks and street, including an African American woman carrying a basket on her head. Views of the adjacent printing house and book store of "Pennsylvania Journal" publisher, William Bradford, are visible. Erected in 1702 and established as a coffee house in 1754 by Bradford, the site was a public center for social and economic activities during the later 18th century, including auctions of enslaved people. Razed in 1883., Title from item., Plate published in John F. Watson's Annals of Philadelphia...(Philadelphia: E.L. Carey & A. Hart, 1830), opp. p. 339., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 442, Gift of James Rush., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
- Creator
- Breton, William L., lithographer
- Date
- [1830]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department BW - Hotels, Inns, Taverns [9245.Q.20], http://www.lcpimages.org/afro-americana/F-London.htm
- Title
- West India luxury!!
- Description
- Satiric print mocking the decadent state of West Indian plantation society containing five vignettes, one with text, depicting slothful white enslavers being lavishly catered to by Black and multiracial enslaved people. Vignettes include: "A West India Nabob" (i.e., man of wealth) as he lounges on his couch, attired in a wide brimmed hat, surrounded by his entourage of enslaved women; enslaved men being used as a "Portable Boot Jack" by their white man enslaver; the white women enslaver showing "Creolean Patience" as she waits for her enslaved marketing person to be told by her enslaved attendant to pick up her nearby fallen needle; the white women enslaver telling "Quashebah come and take my Head in again" from her open window; and a white man enslaver enjoying "One of the Luxuries" of slavery as enslaved women simultaneously comb his hair, wash his feet, fan him, and serve him goblets of wine., Title from item., Described in David Kunzle's The Early comic strip: Narrative strips and picture stories in the European broad sheet from c. 1450 to 1825 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 374-5., Lib. Company. Annual Report, 2000, p. 37-38., Purchase 2000., 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 the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
- Date
- April 1808
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political cartoons - 1808-Wes [9455.F]
- Title
- Perilous escape of Eliza and child
- Description
- Print of a scene from Stowe's popular, anti-slavery novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," originally published in 1851. Depicts the character Eliza, an African American woman freedom seeker, escaping from Kentucky to Ohio across the icy Ohio River. Eliza, depicted barefoot and with a light skin tone, clutches her son Harry to her breast and straddles two blocks of ice as she looks behind her at the irate white man enslaver on the shore near the tavern from which she has fled., Title from item., Purchase 1997., 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., Stong was a prolific New York mid 19th-century lithographer, wood engraver, and publisher who mainly published stock prints.
- Creator
- Strong, Thomas W., lithographer
- Date
- [ca. 1853]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Fictional Characters [P.9524.2]
- 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
- Proclamation of Emancipation. By the President of the United States of America
- Description
- Print commemorating the Emancipation Proclamation containing a bust-length portrait of Abraham Lincoln and two abolitionist vignettes above text from the Proclamation. In the center, Lincoln, attired in a white collared shirt, a black bowtie, waistcoat, and jacket, faces slightly right and is bordered by an American eagle clutching an olive branch and arrows in front of a backdrop of American flags. To the left and right of the portrait are scenes of an auction of enslaved people, with an African American woman, and free African American men working in a carpentry shop. Below the scenes, two African American cherubs hold a banner inscribed, "By the President of the United States of America." Below the text, an allegorical vignette contrasts the productive North with the destitute South depicting a white woman crying, surrounded by her children, sitting underneath a tree., Title from item., Date from copyright statement., Purchase 1972., 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., J. Mayer & Company, the Boston lithography firm established by John Julius Mayer in 1862, specialized in practical lithography. Despite the official firm name, John Mayer had no partners.
- Creator
- J. Mayer & Co., lithographer
- Date
- 1865
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - Emancipation [8025.F.4]
- Title
- Slaves concealing their master from a search party
- Description
- Proslavery print depicting an enslaved African American family hiding their white man enslaver in their cabin from a Union search party on horseback. The enslaver, holding a pistol, hides behind the open door from which the mother, her chair turned over behind her, misdirects the search party down the road. Near the hearth, an older son holds a skillet defensively as a younger petrified sibling holds unto him for protection., Inscribed upper left corner: 12., Issued as plate 12 in Sketches from the Civil War in North America (London [i.e., Baltimore]: [the author], 1863-1864), a series of pro-Confederacy cartoons drawn and published by Baltimore cartoonist Adalbert John Volck under the pseudonym V. Blada. The "first issue" of 10 prints (numbered 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 21, 24), with imprint "London, 1863" were printed as etchings. The remaining 20 prints (numbered 4, 8, 9-11, 14, 17-20, 23, 25-27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 40, 45) headed "Second and third issues of V. Blada's war sketches" and dated "London, July 30, 1864" were printed as lithographs., Title and publication information from series at Brown University Library., Research file about artist available at repository., Accessioned 1935., 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
- Volck, Adalbert John, 1828-1912, artist
- Date
- [1863]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Volck - Sketches - Volck 12 [2990.F.3]
- Title
- Here is a picture of some slaves at work Reward of merit. This may certify that [Mr. George Snow] by diligence and attention to study, merits the approbation of [his] friends and teacher
- Description
- School token illustrated with a scene showing enslaved men and women working in a tobacco field near a shack. In the right, three younger enslaved men hoe and gather a bundle of tobacco. In the left, an enslaved man stands and converses with an enslaved woman, seated on a bale. They each hold the handles of farming implements. A large sack and crate rest to the left of the bale. In the left background, an enslaved woman stands in the doorway of the shack. Wooden buildings and harvested fields are visible in the right background. The young men wear short sleeves and shorts. The women wear dresses and the man wears short sleeves and pants. Rewards of merit were popular with teachers during the 19th century and were given to reward students who had excelled in their school work. The addition of pictures made a reward of merit card a more special acknowledgement of a pupil’s success., Title from illustration caption and text printed on verso., Date inferred from content of image and graphic medium., Verso contains decorative border surrounding the text., Purchased with the Davida T. Deutsch African American History Fund., Illustrated in Patricia Fenn and Alfred Malpa, Rewards of merit (Charlottesville, Va.: Ephemera Society of America, 1994), 118., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., RVCDC
- Date
- [ca. 1830- ca. 1850]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Rewards of Merit - Slaves [118555.D]
- Title
- Arms of ye confederacie
- Description
- Civil War print using the allegory of a coat of arms to criticize slavery and Southern culture. Depicts the shield adorned with symbolic Southern imagery, including a mint julep, pistol, whip and manacles, and enslaved African Americans, including a woman with a baby, working in the field. The shield is flanked by a white man plantation owner, attired in spurs and smoking a pipe, and a bare-chested, barefooted, enslaved African American man in manacles. Above the shield stands a rooster between the Confederate flag and a flag with a skull, cross-bones, and the number 290. Above the rooster is a streamer inscribed "Servitudo Esto Perpetua." In the background, white men plantation owners play cards, two white men duel, and an auction of enslaved people is in progress., Title from item., Possible date of publication supplied by Reilly., RVCDC, Accessioned 1979., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Digitized by Alexander Street Press for Images of the American Civil War., 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
- Tilley, H. H., engraver
- Date
- [1862?]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1862-13R [P.2275.9]
- Title
- The happy negro
- Description
- Satiric print depicting a "happy" enslaved family in a tropical setting, probably the West Indies. Shows an enslaved man strumming his banjo seated next to his wife and child near palm trees and a flower bush. A dog sleeps near its bowl at their feet and grass-roofed huts are visible in the background. Also contains prose below the image comparing and contrasting the white man's and enslaved person's joys and cares. The white man "full of care, has heart no light, he great deal want, he little get, he sorry, so he fret" whereas the negro 'hub no care, heart is light, me tink not what tomorrow bring, me happy so me sing.", Holland published a series of cartoons critical of the decadence of the West Indies plantation society of the early 19th century., 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., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2005, p. 62-65., Purchase 2005., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., RVCDC
- Date
- [August] 1 1810
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1808-Hap [P.2005.28.3]
- Title
- West India fashionables On a visit in style. Taking a ride
- Description
- Satiric print mocking the decadent state of West Indian plantation society containing two views depicting enslaved people performing gratuitous tasks for traveling white enslavers. "On a Visit in Style" shows an enslaver, his wife, and her white lady's maid seated in the cab and rear of a horse-drawn gig. The gig displays a crest comprised of a goblet and whips. One enslaved man guides and another steers the horse that is adorned in netting to protect it from flies. An enslaved man and woman follow the carriage. They carry the enslaver's trunks on their heads. Also shows a windmill and sugar refinery in the background. "Taking a Ride" shows a white couple riding on horses, which are adorned with protective netting, past a sugar refinery and enslaved men and women working in a field. The white woman wears a huge bonnet obscuring her face. An enslaved man guides her horse while another holds its tail and uses a branch to fend off flies. The white man who wears an extremely wide-brimmed hat also has an enslaved man fending away flies from his horse's tail. George suggests that the enslaved people are to be assumed as the progeny of the enslaver as they all have the same unusually shaped nose., Publisher's advertisement printed below image: Of Mr. Holland may be had the following West India Prints, Johnny Newcome in the Island of Jamaica_ A Grand Jamaica Ball_ Martial Law in Jamaica_The Blessings of Jamaica_and a Segar Smoking Society in Jamaica. 5s each_A large portrait of Rachel Pringle of Barbadoes 7s. 6_Likewise Gillray's sale of English Beauties in the East Indies 7s 6d., 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., Purchase 2005., RVCDC., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2005, p. 62-65.
- Date
- November 1, 1807
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1807-Wes [P.2005.28.2]
- Title
- A West India sportsman Make haste with the sangaree Quashie and tell Quaco to drive the birds up to me - I'm ready
- Description
- Satiric print mocking the decadent state of West Indian plantation society showing enslaved people catering to a white enslaver on a hunting trip. Shows the white man, seated under an umbrella, his feet up, his gun in his hand, as he is fanned by a long-sleeved shirt and sarong-clad enslaved man behind him. Other enslaved people (a woman, young men, and a child) keep flies away from platters of meat displayed on a table and a basket of tropical fruit; butler a large glass of sangaree; and drive birds from a field. Also shows jugs of liquor, including royal punch, sangaree, and rum, lined near the grinning "sportsman." The rum jug has toppled over near empty bottles strewn on the ground near a broken jug of water. In the distance, another white enslaver holds a gun and lies on a settee while an enslaved woman holds an umbrella over him. All the figures are depicted with exaggerated features., Publisher's advertisement printed below image: Of Mr. Holland may be had the following West India Prints, Johnny Newcome in the Island of Jamaica_ A Grand Jamaica Ball_ Martial Law in Jamaica_The Blessings of Jamaica_and a Segar Smoking Society in Jamaica. 5s each_A large portrait of Rachel Pringle of Barbadoes 7s. 6_Likewise Gillray's sale of English Beauties in the East Indies 7s 6d., Title from item., 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., RVCDC., Purchase 2005., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2005, p. 62-65., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
- Date
- November 1, 1807
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1807- Wes [P.2005.28.1]
- Title
- John Brown - the martyr. Meeting a slave mother and her child on the steps of Charlestown jail on his way to execution. Regarding them with a look of compassion Captain Brown stooped and kissed the child then met his fate
- Description
- Print depicting the fictitious meeting between John Brown and an enslaved African American mother on the radical abolitionist's walk to the gallows in December 1859. Shows Brown, his hands tied behind his back, standing at the door of the Charles Town, Virginia jail gazing compassionately upon the barefooted mother and her child seated to the side of him on a stair railing. In front of them stands a stern-faced, white man soldier waiting impatiently for Brown's descent down the steps., Title from item., Date from copyright statement., Access points revised 2021., Purchase 1969., Description 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
- Currier & Ives
- Date
- 1870
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *Portrait Prints-B [7811.F]
- Title
- "Father, I cannot tell a lie: I cut the tree"
- Description
- Genre scene of the fictitious moment when the young George Washington confesses to his father, Augustine, a plantation owner, that he cut a cherry tree on their Virginia plantation. Depicts Washington's father holding his son's hand and comforting him. George looks up at his father and points his left hand towards the cut tree in the right. On the ground is an ax and an upturned hat. In the background, an enslaved African American man plows the pasture with a team of oxen, and an enslaved African American man and woman couple stands near the gate of a cottage, probably their dwelling., Title from date., Date based on the active dates of engraver., Gift of Mrs. Francis P. Garvan, 1978., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
- Creator
- McRae, John, engraver
- Date
- [1860]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - Washington [8384.F.16]
- Title
- [ Montage of caricatures satirizing Southern Democrats]
- Description
- Includes six captioned vignettes critically satirizing Southern democrats, copperheads, Jefferson Davis, and Andrew Johnson. Shows Democrats represented as an overseer forcing "Black Republicans" depicted as fleeing enslaved African American men, women, and children to vote their "Ticket in the South"; white men soldiers loading a cannon representing "General Grant giving the Rebel Copperhead Democrats some more grape"; Jefferson Davis fleeing in his "wife's petticoats"; "Johnson on a "Bender," after the Impeachment Trials; a skull and cross bones to symbolize that "Copperheads and Rebel Democrats are Poison"; and Johnson attired in torn and worn clothes and carrying a sack on his back as he is "Travelling for Tennessee." Several of caricatures also used as Civil War envelope designs., Title supplied by cataloger., Date inferred from content., Created postfreeze., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of Civil War miscellanies. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., 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
- [ca. 1868]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons [ca. 1868] - Mon [(2)5786.F.176a]
- Title
- Slavery as it exists in America : Slavery as it exists in England
- Description
- Racist, anti-abolition print challenging Northern abolitionists' view of slavery by favorably contrasting the living conditions of enslaved African American people in America with that of British industrial workers. First image depicts enslaved men, women, and children playing music, singing, and dancing during a hoe-down while Southerners and Northerners observe and comment about how the false reports to the North about the hardships of slavery will now be rectified. Second image portrays a British cloth factory where several emaciated white factory workers, attired in torn and worn clothes, have gathered, including a woman and her children referring to themselves as slaves; two workers discussing running away to an easier life in the coal mines; and workers commenting on their premature aging. A rotund priest and tax collector observe. Soldiers march in the background. Below the image is a small portrait of the "English Anti-slavery Agitator" George Thompson., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1850 by J. Haven in the clerk's office of the District Court of Mass., Manuscript note on verso: Deposited April 9, 1851, Recorded vol 26. pag, 145., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1967, p. 55., 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., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
- Date
- 1850
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1850-6 [P.9675]
- Title
- Martyrdom of John Brown
- Description
- Print depicting the fictitious blessing of an enslaved African American baby by the radical abolitionist on his walk to the gallows in December 1859. Shows Brown in front of his Charles Town, Virginia cell, flanked by guards carrying rifles and swords. An African American woman kneels before him and holds her baby up while Brown lays his hand on the baby’s head. Spectators surround them, including white women and veterans, one with his arm in a sling. In the right, an African American woman nanny wraps her arms around her two well-dressed white boy charges., Title from original painting "John Brown's Blessing" completed in 1867 by Southern historical and genre painter Thomas Satterwhite Noble in the collections of the New York Historical Society., Purchase 1968., 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
- [ca. 1867]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **Portrait Prints-B [7777.F]
- Title
- Reading the Emancipation Proclamation
- Description
- Print depicting a white Union soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation to families of enslaved African Americans in a cabin. The families are depicted with anxious and solemn mannerisms. Family members surround the officer near a dining table and hearth. An older boy holds a torch providing the officer with light. The father watches over the soldier's shoulder. Other figures, including a "young woman with two children, the house servant of her [enslaver], not belonging to the cabin but happened to be in on the occasion" pray, cheer, and cling to their mothers. Interior also includes a side of bacon hanging next to a ladder, a drying line with cotton balls handing from it above the hearth, and a cradle. Contains portrait of Abraham Lincoln below the image. The Emancipation Proclamation, effective January 1, 1863, granted African Americans not only their right to freedom but the right to join the Union Army., Title from item., Date from copyright statement., After painting by Henry Walker Herrick exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1865. Exhibited by "possessor" Lucius Stebbins., Publisher and copyright holder Stebbins published complementary pamphlet "Emancipation Proclamation of January 1st, 1864 [sic]" that included "Description of the Engraving." Description: Old man at the right with folded hands, Grand-father; Old lady at the left with cane in hand, Grand-mother; man leaning on ladder, the father; woman with child in her arms, the mother; lad swinging his hat, oldest son; one holding torch, second son; little girl, oldest daughter; infant in the arms of its mother. Young woman with two children, the house servant of her master, not belonging to the cabin but happened to be in on the occasion. Party reading, Union Soldier. The internal view of the Cabin is true to nature. The stone chimney, garret, ladder, side of bacon, rough cradle, piece of sugar cane and cotton balls, &c, all combine to give a correct idea of the slaves' home. Lincoln Financial Foundation copy of pamphlet accessible at Internet Archive., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1993, p. 44., LCP exhibition catalogue: An African American Miscellany p. 22., Purchase 1993., 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., Lucius Stebbins (1810-1901), born in Massachussets, worked in Hartford, Connecticut, in the businesses of map coloring and subscription book publishing (American Publishing Company).
- Creator
- Watts, James W., -1895, engraver
- Date
- 1864
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC-Emancipation [P.9429]
- Title
- Emancipated slaves Brought from Louisiana by Col. Geo. H. Hanks. The children are from the schools established by order of Maj. Gen. Banks
- Description
- Abolitionist group portrait of emancipated enslaved men, woman, and children, freed by Union General Butler in New Orleans, on tour through the North to raise funds for the emancipated enslaved schools of Louisiana. Depicts Wilson Chinn, his forehead branded with the initials of his former master; Colonel Hank's cook, Mary Johnson; ordained preacher, Robert Whitehead; African American child, Isaac White; and the fair-skinned children Charles Taylor, Augusta Broujey, Rebecca Huger, and Rosina Downs. Names of the emancipated enslaved people printed below image. Proceeds from the sale of the photograph were to be donated to the education of emancipated enslaved people in the Department of the Gulf., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by Philip Bacon, in the Clerk's Office of the United States for the Southern District of New-York., Image reproduced as wood engraving with accompanying article in Harper's weekly, January 30, 1864, p. 69 and p. 71. (LCP **Per H, 1864)., Copyrighted by Philip Bacon, Assistant Superintendent of Freedmen and founder of first emancipated enslaved school in Louisiana., See Kathleen Collin's "Portraits of slave children," History of photography 9 (July-September 1985), p. 187-210., Accessioned 2001., 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
- Kimball, M. H., photographer
- Date
- 1863
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department group portrait photographs - emancipation [P.9864]
- Title
- The house that Jeff built
- Description
- Cartoon attacking slavery and Jefferson Davis as the Confederate President. Contains twelve vignettes indicative of the inhumanity of the institution of slavery with accompanying verse following the frequently used cartoons scheme of the nursery rhyme "The House that Jack Built." The vignettes starting with the house that Jeff built (a depiction of a "Slave Pen") continue to include images of bales of cotton; enslaved African Americans working in the cotton fields; an auction of enslaved African American men, women, and children; a white man auctioneer; shackles; a white man enslaver whipping an enslaved African American woman; and a portrait of "arch rebel" Davis. The vignettes end with the image of several smashed symbols of slavery, such as shackles and whips alongside a notice of Davis's execution. The accompanying verse predicts that "Jeffs infamous house is doom'd.", Title from item., Artist and publication information supplied by Reilly., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1863 by D.C. Johnson in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts., Purchase 1966., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Digitized by Alexander Street Press for Images of the American Civil War., 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., David Claypoole Johnston (1779-1860), known as the "American Cruikshank," was a respected comic illustrator, engraver, and lithographer.
- Creator
- Johnston, David Claypoole, 1799-1865, artist
- Date
- 1863
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1863-9 [7549.F]
- Title
- Views of slavery Does the slaveholder admit the slave to be a human being? If so we would ask his interpretation of the following sentiment "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do you even so to them."
- Description
- Abolitionist print containing six scenes depicting the inhumanity of slavery. Scenes include enslaved African American children crying while their mothers work and a white man enslaver whips an enslaved man in a sugar plantation field; the punishment of enslaved people by flogging, whipping, and binding by white men overseers in a shack; an auction of enslaved people; a free African American woman with a child watching the destruction of her free papers as she is kidnapped from the street; an anguished enslaved mother being separated from her children by a white man involved in the slave trade; and the shipping of enslaved people to New Orleans from a Baltimore dock. Also contains an excerpt about the rights of human beings from William Ellery Channing's abolitionist text, "On Slavery," below the image., Title from item., Advertised in the New York American Anti-Slavery Society newspaper, Emancipator (March 1836), p.3., Purchase 2003., 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 the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2003, p. 45-46.
- Date
- [1836]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1836 Vie [P.2003.10], http://www.lcpimages.org/afro-americana/F-Views.htm
- Title
- John Brown meeting the slave mother and her child on the steps of Charlestown jail on his way to execution
- Description
- Print depicting the fictitious meeting between John Brown and an enslaved African American mother during the radical abolitionist's walk to the gallows in December 1859. Shows Brown at the top of the steps of the Charles Town, Virginia jail being led by several white men past the mother holding and looking down at her baby. The men include a prison guard in militia-uniform attempting to push the mother aside as Brown gazes compassionately upon her; the jailor, an old bearded man in cape and hat with his hand raised in front of his chin; the jailor's friend, a balding, bearded man pointing the way to the execution; and another militia man in an old Continental" uniform with a tricorne hat labeled "76." Also includes the Virginia state flag, waving above the head of Brown in the shape of a halo inscribed, "Sic Semper Tyrannis," i.e.; "Who is the tyrant, who the conqueror?" and a stern-faced, enslaver, attired in a Virginia militia uniform, waiting impatiently at the bottom of the stairs opposite a dismembered statue of justice in a pile of rubbish., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1863, by Currier and Ives in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York., Text printed below the title: The artist has represented Capt. Brown regarding with a look of compassion a Slave-mother and Child who obstructed the passage on his way to the scaffold. Capt. Brown stooped and kissed the child- then met his fate., Original painting described in "A Rare Picture," an 1886 broadside probably by Ransom, in the collections of the library of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Transcription available at repository., Purchase 1969., Reaccessioned as P.2003.18., 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
- Currier & Ives
- Date
- 1863
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *Portrait Prints-B [7817.F]
- Title
- From the plantation to the Senate
- Description
- Commemorative print containing portraits of eminent 19th-century African American men above a central cotton plantation scene. In front of the plantation residence by a river, enslaved African American men and women pick and transport baskets of cotton as a well-dressed African American foreman on horseback confers with a man on the dirt road. Flanking the central portrait of "Hon. Frederick Douglass, Champion of Freedom" on a background of tropical flowers, vines, and fruits are: "Hon. Benj. S. Turner of Alabama"; "Rt. Rev. Richard Allen" of Philadelphia, "1st Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church"; "Hon. H.R. Revels of Mississippi"; "Hon. Joseph H. Rainy [sic] of South Carolina"; "Hon. Josiah T. Walls of Florida"; and "Wm. Wells Brown, M.D., Author of the Rising Sun [sic]". Also contains vignettes of romanticized images of African American home life by a river showing African Americans playing instruments and dancing, transporting watermelon by barge, and relaxing outside their home., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyrighted 1883 by Gaylord Watson., Watson was a New York lithographer who specialized in maps., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1974, p. 61., Purchase 1974., 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
- 1883
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - African American Heroes [8091.F.275]
- Title
- "No higher law."
- Description
- Antislavery print denouncing the immorality of the Fugitive Slave Law by exploiting abolitionist Senator William H. Seward's famous quote that "a higher law" than the Constitution should exist regarding slavery. Shows "King Slavery," depicted as a bearded, bare-chested, white man, attired in a crown made of finger bones and armed with pistols in his waistband. The King sits and leans upon the arm of his throne composed of the "Fugitive Slave Bill," the Bible, and human skulls as he defiantly holds a whip of chains above his head. An American flag on a pole billows behind the throne. Below the throne, Seward, depicted as a priest, looks up and raises his left hand toward the King. He stands before a cat-faced altar inscribed "Sacred to Slavery," which rests upon a book of "Law" and pours oil from a container onto the altar fire, generating clouds of smoke. In the right, three enslaved men squat with their heads bowed. Senator Daniel Webster gestures toward them and holds a paper supporting the Fugitive Slave Bill "to the fullest extent." Near them, "Freedom," depicted as a bearded, white man and attired in a robe, displays his sense of defeat by removing his crown and lowering his liberty pole. In the left, an African American man freedom seeker fends off dogs attacking him. An African American woman freedom seeker and two children flee from two white men mercenaries on horseback and run toward a white woman with outstretched arms in front of a house. In the right background, the figure of Liberty falls from her pedestal., Title from item., Place of publication inferred from the residence of the distributor., Weitenkampf suggests date of publication as 1851., Text printed on recto: Price $3 A Hundred And Six Cents Single Copy., William Harned was an abolitionist printer in New York who also published the pamphlet, "The Fugitive Slave Bill:...." in 1850. (LCP Am 1850 Fug 16809.D.1)., A.B. Maurice and F.T. Cooper's The History of the 19th century in caricature (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1904), p. 156., Lib. Company. Annual Report, 2000, p. 40-2., Purchase 1999., 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
- [1851]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1851 - 2W [P.9739]
- Title
- Emancipated slaves Brought from Louisiana by Col. Geo. H. Hanks. The children are from the schools established by order of Maj. Gen. Banks
- Description
- Abolitionist group portrait of emancipated enslaved men, woman, and children, freed by Union General Butler in New Orleans, on tour through the North to raise funds for the emancipated enslaved schools of Louisiana. Depicts Wilson Chinn, his forehead branded with the initial of his former master; Colonel Hank's cook, Mary Johnson; ordained preacher, Robert Whitehead; African American child, Isaac White; and the fair-skinned children Charles Taylor, Augusta Broujey, Rebecca Huger, and Rosina Downs. Names of the emancipated enslaved people printed below image., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by Geo. H. Hanks, in the Clerk's Office of the United States for the Southern District of New-York., Image reproduced as wood engraving with accompanying article in Harper's weekly, January 30, 1864, p. 69 and p. 71. (LCP **Per H, 1864)., Copyrighted by George H. Hanks, abolitionist, civil rights activist, and Civil War colonel., Label on verso: The nett proceeds from the sale of these Photographs will be devoted exclusively to the education of colored people in the Department of the Gulf, now under the command of Maj. Gen. Banks., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of miscellaneous Civil War prints. 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., See Kathleen Collin's "Portraits of slave children," History of photography 9 (July-September 1985), p. 187-210.
- Creator
- Kimball, M. H., photographer
- Date
- 1863
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department group portrait photographs - emancipation [(1)5786.F.108]
- Title
- Practical illustration of the fugitive slave law
- Description
- Antislavery print depicting a fight between Northern abolitionists and supporters of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. In the left, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and an African American man both raise guns to protect an enslaved African American woman who is attired in a head kerchief, earrings, a short-sleeved dress, and shoes. She raises both arms in the air and clutches a handkerchief in her right hand and exclaims “Oh Massa Garrison protect me!!!” Garrison wraps his right arm around her and says, “Don’t be alarmed, Susanna, you’re safe enough.” In the right, the white man mercenary, attired in a top hat with a star on it, who may represent the federal marshals or commissioners authorized by the act (and paid) to apprehend freedom seekers, carries a noose and shackles. He sits astride Secretary of State Daniel Webster, who is on his hands and knees clutching the Constitution and bemoaning, "This, though constitutional, is extremely disagreeable." Behind them a white man, possibly John C. Calhoun, declares "We will give these fellows a touch of Old South Carolina" and carries two volumes labeled "Law and Gospel." Another white man carries a quill and ledger and says "I goes in for Law & Order." In the background, a number of men on both sides fight. A white man lies on the ground on his back. An African American man grabs a white man enslaver by the head and holds a whip while saying “It’s my turn now Old Slave Driver.” A "Temple of Liberty" stands in the background with two flags flying which read, "A day, an hour, of virtuous Liberty is worth an age of Servitude," and "All men are created free and equal.", Title from item., Probable place and date of publication supplied by Reilly., Weitenkampf attributed this cartoon to the New York artist Edward Williams Clay, but Reilly refutes this attribution on the grounds that the draftsmanship, signature, and political opinions are atypical of Clay., 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
- [1850 or 1851]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1851-6 [5760.F.104]
- Title
- A grand slave hunt, or trial of speed for the presidency, between celebrated nags Black Dan, Lewis Cass, and Haynau
- Description
- Cartoon criticizing presidential candidates Daniel Webster (i.e., Black Dan) and Lewis Cass's avid support for the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law during the election of 1852. Shows Webster, carrying a copy of the Fugitive Slave Law and a flag, leading a group of white men, including the lagging Michigan Senator Lewis Cass; the infamously cruel Hungarian General Baron Haynau with a pitcher of "Barclay Best" on his head (a symbolic reference to the brewery workers who attacked him in England); and President Millard Fillmore holding a Fugitive Slave Bill. They pursue an enslaved African American woman who runs clutching a baby in her arms and holding the hand of her young son. Additional figures in the background include Horace Mann, Massachusetts Congressman and opponent of the Compromise of 1850; an orator resembling Webster bombasting Mann before a group of kneeling white men admirers; a preaching white man minister with Bible in hand; and an African American woman freedom seeker with her child being tugged between a yelling man and a white man mercenary carrying handcuffs., Title from item., Date of publication supplied by Weitenkampf., Purchase 1967., 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
- [1852]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1852-7W [P.9676]
- Title
- The result of the Fifteenth Amendment, and the rise and progress of the African race in America and its final accomplishment, and celebration on May 19th A.D. 1870
- Description
- Print commemorating the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment containing a large central scene of the celebratory parade held in Baltimore in May surrounded by several bust portraits and vignettes. Parade is led by several African American Zoaves down Monument Street, which is lined with African American and white men, women, and children spectators. Bust-length portraits of African American civil rights supporters above and to the sides of this scene include Abraham Lincoln; Baltimore jurist Hugh Lennox Bond; abolitionist John Brown; Vice-President Schuyler Colfax; President Grant; Pennsylvania representative Thaddeus Stevens; Maryland representative Henry Davis; Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner; Martin Robinson Delaney; Frederick Douglass; and Mississippi Senator Hiram Revels. Vignettes include a plantation scene depicting enslaved African American men and women working in a cotton field while a white man stands looking on titled, "we are in bondage, deliver us!; a Civil War battle with African American troops; a classroom with an African American man teacher and African American students titled, "Education will be our pride"; an African American congregation; and a parade of African American Masons holding banners., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1870 by Metcalf & Clark, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington., Purchase 1968., 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
- 1870
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *political cartoons - 1870-2 [7764.F]
- Title
- Distinguished colored men
- Description
- Commemorative print containing a montage of portraits of eminent African American men centered around a portrait of Frederick Douglass and bordered by vignettes. Portraiture depicts: "Robert Brown Elliott, Ex-member of Congress" from South Carolina; "Blanche K. Bruce, Ex-Senator, U.S." from Mississippi; "Prof. R.T. Greener, Dean, Howard University"; "Wm. Wells Brown, M.D., author of the Rising Son"; "Henry Highland Garnett [sic], Late Minister of Liberia"; "Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, 1st Bishop of the African M.E. Church" in Philadelphia; first African American governor, "P.B.S. Pinchback, Ex-Governor of Louisiana"; "J.H. Rainey, Ex-Member of Congress"; "E.D. Bassett, Ex-Minister to Hayti"; "John Mercer Langston, Minister to Hayti". Vignettes depict a cornstalk, a twig of cotton, and scenes of romanticized images of African American home life by a waterway showing African Americans playing instruments, dancing, transporting watermelon by barge, and relaxing., Title from item., Inscribed lower right corner: Agents Wanted., Lower left corner inexpertly hand painted., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1975, p. 61., Accessioned 1975., 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
- 1883
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - African American Heroes [8139.F]
- Title
- Heroes of the colored race
- Description
- Print commemorating men prominent in and representative of the advancement of African American civil rights. Depicts a central vignette of bust-length portraits of ex-Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce of Mississippi, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and ex-Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi surrounded by four scenes of pre- and post-Civil War African American life. Includes two titled scenes, "Receiving the News of the Emancipation" depicting an older African American man, two women, and children celebrating, and "Studying the Lesson" depicting an African American man teacher instructing a classroom of children. Adorning the borders of the central vignette are a portrait of John Brown flanked by a horn of plenty and school books, and an eagle holding American flags embellished with portraits of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and Ulysses S. Grant. Other scenes depict enslaved African American men and women picking cotton and African American Civil War soldiers fighting a battle. Includes corner portraits of African American legislators John R. Lynch of Mississippi, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina, Robert Smalls of South Carolina, and Charles E. Nash of Louisiana., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1975, p. 60-61., Gift of Gordon Colket, 1975., Reaccessioned as P.9615., 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
- 1881
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - African American Heroes [8140.F]
- Title
- [Deborah Passmore Gillingham scrapbook of prints, drawings, and specimens]
- Description
- Scrapbook of chiefly engravings, drawings, and specimens compiled starting in 1847 by Quaker amateur artist Deborah P. Gillingham. Contains several circa 1810s-1850s book and periodical illustrations, including from "Godey’s Lady’s Book," the "Union Magazine", and the "Literary Souvenir" (London), that depict genre, sentimental, historical, European, and literary scenes and views, as well as portraits of prominent American and European literary, religious, and political figures, particularly abolitionists. Titles of illustrations include "Cinderella"; "Harvest Wagon"; "Bolton Abbey, Wharfdale"; "Lockport, Erie Canal"; "Bit"; "The Sisters Clio"; "Steps to Ruin"; "The Rescue"; "Warming the Mitten"; "Going to School"; "Queen Henrietta Interceding for the King"; "France, Lyon"; and "Fall of Terni." Many of the "Union Magazine" illustrations are after the work of artist Tompkins H. Matteson and depict scenes with children, women, families and/or couples. Illustrations also include the 1848 comic plate "The Lost Glove" depicting an African American servant and a dandy ("Union Magazine," April 1848) and an 1838? portrait of "Joanna," the enslaved woman with whom British–Dutch colonial soldier and author of "The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam" (1796, reprinted 1838) John Gabriel Stedman had a relationship. Portrait sitters include Lucretia Mott, Gerrit Smith, Elias Hicks, Thomas Clarkson, Thomas Moore, Daniel O’Connell, Alice B. Neale, and Benjamin Lundy. Illustrations also depict Philadelphia landmarks, including Franklin Institute, Schuylkill Water Works, and Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. Philadelphia views also include a separately-issued lithograph depicting Clermont Academy printed by Childs & Inman after George Lehman., A number of pencil works and ink drawings comprise the scrapbook with many captioned and depicting dwelling, landscape, and landmark views of Switzerland and Great Britain. Includes pencil sketch "from memory" of "Jungfrau, Switzerland" (Alps) by "E.B.E"; pencil drawing "The House in which Shakespeare was born. Henley Street. Strafford Upon Avon"; gouache and watercolors of "Chinese Fish"; pencil drawings with Chinese white captioned "Austin's Farm at Supiston Suffolk. The early residence of Robert Bloomfield" and "Mill at Bannockburn in which James 3rd was killed"; a pencil drawing of Friends Bank Meeting House inscribed "Mary Young"; pencil drawing of "Residence of George Fox" inscribed "John Young"; and two landscape watercolors by English Quaker social reformer and anti-slavery activist Elizabeth Heyrick., Scrapbook also contains several labeled botanical and material specimens from historical, Biblical, literary, and cultural landmarks and sites, as well as "Specimens of sea moss (i.e. algae) from Cape May May 1848" (one arranged in the letters "D.G.") and the hair of "E.M. Chandler." Often placed in folded sheets of paper with inscribed labels, specimens include "From the scene of Grays Elegy by Mantle Tower That Yew Tree shade"; "From the grave of Cromwell"; "Waterloo"; "Piece of South Sea Island Cloth"; "Mummy cloth unrolled by Gliddon 1851"(Egyptologist George Robbins Gliddon publically unwrapped mummies as performances in Boston and Philadelphia, 1851-1852); and "Pompei.", Additional items of note include a pencil sketch by Gillingham of "East Mount. The residence of John Pease England"; etchings depicting Suffolk landmarks by Henry Davy; the anti-slavery manuscript poem "America" signed and dated by British Quaker novelist, poet, and abolitionist Amelia Opie (Norwich 1846); the anti-slavery manuscript poem "Do as thou wouldst be done by"… signed and dated by British Quaker poet Bernard Barton (Woodbridge September 19, 1846); and circa 1847 calling cards by Chinese writing specialist Tsow Chaoong (Philadelphia 1847-1849) handwritten in English and Chinese characters “D.P. Gillingham” and "Y. M. Gillingham." A small number of circa 1900s clippings and photomechanical prints of portraits and landscapes also comprise the contents., Title supplied by cataloger., Date inferred from content., Inscribed on p. [1]: Deborah P. Gillingham 10 mo 20. 1847., Marbled paper binding., Several pages contain tissue paper overlays., Incomplete pencil sketch of dwellings on verso of drawing of "The River Side of Earlham" on p. [10]., Various artists, engravers, printers, and publishers include Childs & Inman; John Collins; Henry Davy; A. L. Dick; George Lehman; Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green; Tompkins H. Matteson; Henry Sadd; John Sartain; and Thomas Sinclair., RVCDC, Access points revised 2022., Housed in phase box., Number of items missing or removed from pages., Page numbers added by cataloger lower right corner., Loose pages and inserts of gold paper removed, placed in enclosure, and housed with scrapbook in phase book., Deborah Passmore Gillingham (1820-1877), cousin of professional botanical illustrator Deborah Griscom Passmore (1840-1911), was an amateur botanical illustrator. Disowned from the Orthodox Philadelphia Meeting, Northern District in 1842, Passmore became a member of the Hicksite Green Street Meeting. She married Philadelphia wool merchant Yeamans Moon Gillingham (1817-1885) in 1844 and relocated with him to Moorestown, N.J. in 1850 following his retirement. The couple had a son Aubrey Howard Gillingham (1850-1885). In 1855 the family was recommended by the Green Street Meeting for the Eversham Monthly Meeting, N.J. At her death, Gillingham was a member of the Moorestown Monthly Meeting. Among her bequests were funds to endow beds at the Philadelphia Orthopedic Hospital and Dispensary and the Women’s Hospital.
- Creator
- Gillingham, Deborah Passmore, 1820-1877, compiler
- Date
- [ca. 1810-ca. 1910, bulk 1830-1850]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2019.6]
- Title
- Afro-American historical family record
- Description
- Blank African American genealogical certificate containing a family tree surrounded by portraits of the first twenty-four U.S. presidents; portraits of prominent African American men and women religious, political, and educational leaders; and eleven vignettes contrasting life in the South of the enslaved versus the free. African American portraits include Frederick Douglass flanked by Washington and Lincoln; Judson W. Lyons, Register of the Treasury; Miss Lucy C. Laney, Founder of the Haines Institute; Booker T. Washington; H.M. Turner, Bishop of the A.M.E. Church; T. Thomas Fortune, editor New York Age; Hon. John M. Langston, diplomat; Madam Sissiretta Jones, performer and singer; Miss Hallie Q. Brown, educator and African American women's rights activist; Prof. Mary V. Cook, Principal of the State University, Louisville, KY; Miss Ida B. Wells, editor and author; Hon. John R. Lynch, U.S. Paymaster and ex-Congressman; Dr. Henry Fitzbutler, founder of the Louisville National Medical College; and L.H. Holsey, Bishop of the C.M.E. Church. Vignettes depicting slavery include the last auction of enslaved people in Savannah; enslaved cotton pickers working the field; enslaved people dancing and playing instruments "as children were taught in the dark days of slavery"; and an enslaved family in front of their “hut.” Contrasting post-emancipation scenes include a view of Tuskegee Institute; a view of "progressive farming as taught at Tuskegee Institute"; a group portrait in front of a "school house erected by a Tuskegee graduate"; the Victorian house of R.R. Church, a free man; and Spanish-American War battle scenes of African American regiments assisting the Rough Riders, including at San Juan Hill. Also contains the white eye of Providence below the title., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1899, by J.M. Vickroy, Terre Haute, Ind., Printed on recto: Branch Office Terre Haute, Ind., Purchase 2002., 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., Vickroy, a prominent Indiana fine arts publisher, specialized in genealogical and fraternal order certificates.
- Date
- 1899
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - African American Heroes [P.2002.16]