[Pictorial lettersheet containing illustration of "Am I Not a Woman and Sister"]
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]
To the friends of negro emancipation, this print is inscribed
Title
To the friends of negro emancipation, this print is inscribed
Description
Print commemorating Great Britain's passage of legislation, given royal assent in 1834, granting emancipation to the enslaved throughout Great Britain and the British colonies. Depicts near a coast, a joyous free Black man, attired in a sarong, arms held up in celebration. He stands upon a whip surrounded by smiling Black men who bury his shackles; a Black girl who kneels before him; and a Black mother, seated on a bench beside a book, smiles and holds her baby up in the air. Next to them an "Emancipation Notice" has been tacked to a palm tree. In the background, Black people celebrate on the shore as a ship sails away., Title from item., Text printed below title: A glorious and happy era on the first of August, bursts upon the Western World; England strikes the manacle from the slave, and bids the bond go free., Purchase 1969., 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.
Creator
Lucas, David, 1802-1881, engraver
Date
August 1, 1834
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC-Emancipation [7808.F]
Emancipation
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]
Emancipation
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]