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- Title
- Truth, Sojourner, d. 1883.
- Description
- In Gilbert, O. Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Boston, 1850), frontispiece., Bust-length portrait of Sojourner Truth, with a scarf around her head.
- Date
- [1850?]
- Location
- http://www.librarycompany.org/women/portraits_religion/truth.htm
- Title
- Independent Order of Odd Fellows [membership certificate]
- Description
- Membership certificate for members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows containing a decorative border of Gothic elements and emblems, vignettes, and scenes representing the degrees, tenants, and activities of the benevolent organization. Scenes show odd fellows assisting the indisposed and enfeebled, tutoring children, and assisting in a burial. Vignettes depict emblems of the five degrees that include the fache, globe, a bee hive, coats of arms, columns, Bible, Moses's rod, the dove, the brazen serpent, skull and cross bones, the moon, the sun, a cornucopia and scale. Also contains the female allegorical figures "Friendship, Love, and Truth" with a small child; the all Seeing Eye below the motto "In God We Trust"; and the seal of the Odd Fellows. Seal includes the motto "Relieve the Distressed, Bury the Dead and Educate the Orphan. We Command You to Visit the Sick." and is bordered by cherub figures., Not in Wainwright., Issued to Thomas Butler, Decatur Lodge No. 33 on June 1, 1859. Signed Wm M. Main, N[oble] G[rand] and Sam E. Crap Sect., Philadelphia on Stone, POSP 116, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Certificates - Independent
- Date
- [c1857]
- Location
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Certificates - Independent
- Title
- Grand United Order Odd Fellows America [membership certificate]
- Description
- Membership certificate for the African American fraternal organization containing an allegorical view that includes Odd Fellow iconography. Shows the female figures of Justice and Truth standing on globes and flanking a framed view of an ark at sea. Justice holds a sword and scale and Truth holds a torch, serpent, and a mirror from which a light shines. Visible within and bordering the view are Odd Fellow symbols, including the sickle and hourglass, dove, skull and crossbones, the lamb, heart-in-hand, and the lion. Above the view the female figure Charity sits and holds children in her lap below the all Seeing Eye in the night sky under a rainbow marked "G.U.O. of O.F." The G.U.O.O.F was established in 1843 with a charter from the Grand Lodge in Manchester, England., Not in Wainwright., Copyrighted by D. B. Bowser, probably the artist., Issued to David B. Bowser, Unity Lodge, No. 711, G.U. O. of O.F. on July 10, 1844. Signed James Needham, N[oble] F[ather], James McCrummill, N[oble] G[rand] and Joshua Campbell, P. S[ecretary]., Philadelphia on Stone, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Certificates - Odd Fellows, Bowser, was a prominent African American ornamental artist and social activist, who specialized in signs, banners, and paraphernalia in addition to portraiture. Major commissions included volunteer firefighter apparel and equipment, Civil War pictorial banners, and Grand United Order of Odd Fellows regalia.
- Date
- c1843
- Location
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania | Print Department | HSP at LCP HSP Certificates - Odd Fellows
- Title
- I sell the shadow to support the substance. Sojourner Truth
- Description
- Three-quarter length portrait of the African American itinerant preacher, abolitionist, and women's rights advocate born into slavery and originally known as Isabella Baumfree. Shows Truth, seated, and attired in a dark-colored, long sleeved dress with white collar, white shawl with fringe, and a white cap. She wears wire-rimmed glasses and faces front and is turned slightly to her left. She holds knitting in her left hand which rests on a small table that has a decorative table cloth. A notebook and vase of flowers adorn the table. A string of yarn runs across her lap. Truth escaped to freedom in 1826. During the period of the Civil War, Truth captioned, marketed, copyrighted, and sold at least eleven different carte-de-visite portraits of herself at her lectures and through the mail to earn personal funds and advocate for the abolition of slavery. Her knitting probably alludes to her promotion of the handcraft as an industry for advancement for former enslaved persons., Title from item., Publication information from copyright statement on verso: Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1864, by Sojourner Truth, in the Clerk's Office, of the U. S. District Court, for the Eastern District of Mich., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2016, p. 66-67., Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022.
- Date
- 1864
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department cdv portraits - sitter - Truth [P.2017.27]