Racist trade card promoting Higgins' soap and depicting a caricature of an African American woman domestic washing a window. The woman is portrayed with exaggerated features and speaks in the vernacular. Shows the African American woman with her hair in pigtail braids tied at the ends in white bows, attired in an orange and yellow striped head kerchief; a red and white shawl; a blue, short-sleeved shirt with black stripes; an orange and yellow checked skirt; yellow, red, and white striped stockings; and black shoes. The woman sits on the window ledge with her legs crossed at the ankles. Her upper body is outside of the house as she washes the exterior of the window with a white cloth. The woman smiles at the viewer and says, “Use Higgins' soap in de mornin, a washin of de winder, for wif good soap and a merry heart, dar's nothin for to hinder.” In the right is a wooden bucket with a bar of soap labeled, “Higgins Soap,” on top of a wooden stool. The Charles S. Higgins Company, established by Higgins’s father W. B. Higgins in Brooklyn in 1846, manufactured "German Laundry soap" beginning around 1860, when Charles assumed the business. The laundry soap was packaged in a wrapper illustrated with an African American woman washing in a tub. By the early 1890s, Charles S. Higgins left the firm still operated under his name and formed Higgins Soap Company. Court proceedings over trademarks and tradenames ensued and Higgins Soap Company became insolvent by the mid 1890s., Title from item., Date deduced from history of the advertised business., Gift of David Doret.
Date
[ca. 1880]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Goldman Trade Card Collection - Higgins' [P.2017.95.84]
