Search results

Title: The Universal clothes wringer
Description: Metamorphic trade card promoting the American Wringer Company's Universal Wringer. Depicts a racist "before and after" scene with and without the product. The before scene shows an African American laundress "Dinah" wringing clothes by hand over a tub. She states in vernacular speech that "de wringing am awful." A white woman chastises her to "look at these torn clothes." She holds up a square shaped cloth with tears. A clock is visible in the background. The women are shown as bust-length. Dinah wears a kerchief, an open collared shirt, and her sleeves are rolled up. The after scene shows a smiling "Dinah," wringing laundry with a "Universal" clothes wringer under the happy gaze of her employer. The women reach a hand out to one another. Dinah wears a high ruffled collar shirtwaist with a bow at her neck, long sleeves, an apron, and kerchief. A clock rests on a sideboard in the background. The American Wringer Company was established about 1861 and operated until at least the early 20th century. The company often provided a clock as a premium to purchase their laundry equipment., Title from item., Date inferred from attire of figures depicted., Text printed on recto: Oh mistis de wringing am awful, always tear de clothes 'spect dat I neber get through. What Dinah, six o'clock and not done yet! And look at these torn clothes. "What Dinah! Finished washing so soon! Why it's only three o'clock." "Hi golly! Mistis, been done dese two hours dis chile hab no more trouble, since you done got dis wringer. Neber tear de clothes neder., Advertising text printed on verso: The Universal Wringer has the following points of superiority. 1. Rolls of solid white rubber. 2. Rowell's double cog-wheels. 3. Two independent pressure screws. 4. Double cogs at both ends of each roll. 5. Folding apron or clothes guide. 6. Rocking springs of wood and rubber., Distributor's name on verso: J. Russell & Co., Dealers in hardware, carpenters' and machinists' tools, 23 Dwight and 23 Race Streets, Holyoke, Mass., Gift of David Doret., Library Company holds a duplicate copy with a variant distributor [113420.D].
Date: [ca. 1885]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Goldman Trade Card Collection -American [P.2017.95.6]

Title: Use Merrick's thread. "Gully this cotton beats 'em all!"
Description: Racist trade card promoting Merrick thread and depicting a domestic scene of an older African American man sewing. Shows the man, in a cabin setting, seated atop a stool, his feet slightly turned in, and mending the seat of a pair of blue pants. The man holds th epants in his left hand and pulls a needle and thread through a patch on the pants in his right. The thread comes from a large spool beside the man which is marked with "Merrick Thread Co. Best Six Cord 8" logo. Behind the man is a window with a sill. Plants line the window sill. A candelabrum rests on a shelf attached to the wall below the window. The man is attired in a red button-down shirt, blue suspenders, brown pants, and brown shoes. Merrick Thread Co. was founded in 1865 by Timothy Merrick, Austin Merrick, and Origen Hall in Mansfield, Connecticut. After its founding, the company established mills in Holyoke, Massachusetts. In 1898, the company merged with thirteen other independent thread and yarn manufacturers to form the American Thread Company., Title from item., Date inferred from content and genre of print., Several lines of advertising text printed on verso. Verso is defaced and text is illegible., Gift of David Doret.
Date: [ca. 1885]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Goldman Trade Card Collection - Merrick [P.2017.95.122]

Title: With the season's greetings
Description: Racist, holiday greeting card depicting a caricature of an African American man. Shows the bust length portrait of the man facing right with his eyes looking at the viewer. He is portrayed with exaggerated features and attired in a white hat with a brown band, gold earrings, a white collared shirt with a gold pin, a yellow and red bowtie, and a white jacket with a red flower boutonniere., Title from item., Publication information from the copyright statement: Raphael Tuck & Sons Copyright., Date deduced from the visual content., Gift of David Doret.
Date: [ca. 1890]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Goldman Trade Card Collection - Greeting Cards, etc. - With [P.2017.95.253]

Title: Heah I is honey wid dem old time Christmas temptations
Description: Die cut card depicting a racist caricature of an African American man holding a sprig of mistletoe. The man is balding and has tufts of white hair on the sides of his head and is attired in a yellow and purple scarf, a pink and white checked shirt, a black jacket, red mittens, blue and green striped pants, and black shoes. In his left hand he carries a gray hat with a purple band. In his right hand he holds a sprig of mistletoe, made of wire and cloth, and speaks in the vernacular, “heah I is honey wid dem old time Christmas temptations.” Below him is a small red frame with a depiction of a white woman, attired in a pink bonnet, a yellow coat, white socks, and black shoes, leaning in to kiss a white man, attired in a black hat, a blue jacket, green pants, and black shoes. They are flanked by two pine trees in red containers., Title from item., Date deduced from the visual content., Manuscript note on verso: With all the love in the world - Duke & [Ercil?]., Gift of David Doret and Linda G. Mitchell.
Date: [ca. 1890]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Goldman Trade Card Collection - Greeting Cards, etc. - Christmas [P.2017.95.240]

Title: Foh yo' birfday! De sweetest little flowers, dat eber ah saw grew, am climbing up de birfday fence, a-blossomin' foh you!
Description: Birthday card depicting a racist caricature an African American girl standing as flowers grow over a fence and towards a house. Shows the African American girl portrayed with exaggerated features and attired in an orange dress with purple polka dots, blue shoes, and blue and orange bows in her hair. At her feet are yellow, purple, blue, and orange flowers. She speaks in the vernacular that the flowers are “climbing up de birfday fence,” which is the yellow fence depicted in the right. The flowers, made of cloth, grow over it and towards a house, which has flowers growing on the roof. The house is blue with green shutters that are falling apart., Title from item., Date deduced from the visual content., Manuscript note on recto: Harold- Henry- Florence, Gift of David Doret.
Date: [ca. 1890]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Goldman Trade Card Collection - Greeting Cards, etc. - Foh [P.2017.95.242]

Title: [Geo. S. Harris & Sons print specimens]
Description: Series of specimens, primarily for trade cards and labels, printed by the prominent Philadelphia lithographic firm. Subjects include fanciful, allegorical, and sentimental scenes and portraiture with women, children, and flowers; hunting and recreational scenes; international iconography; animals (dogs, horses, and an alligator clutching a Black baby in its jaws); political and military imagery, including President James Garfield; land and marinescapes; and mythological and fairy tale views. Collection also includes specimen without an imprint and probably printed by Harris showing a plantation scene with a white man, attired in a straw hat, a white collared shirt, white pants, and a sword on his waistband, placing his right hand on the shoulder of a barefooted Black man, attired in a straw hat, a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and white pants that are torn at the bottom, who carries a hoe. They stand before a body of water surrounded by flowers and trees with the plantation in the background. Racist scene shows a white female angel with wings pouring packages of tobacco from a cornucopia to a group of men and women from various ethnic groups and nationalities, including Native Americans, Chinese, Spanish, and Middle Eastern people, many of which smoke cigars, hookahs, and pipes. Specimen depicting a man, attired in a turban with a dagger in his waistband, kneeling with a rifle beside him. Surrounding him are palms and desert plants. In the right background, a lions stands and looks on., Title supplied by cataloger., Publication date inferred from content of one print depicting President James Garfield., Originally part of Specimens Album [P.9349]., Gift of Margaret Robinson, 1991., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
Date: [ca. 1881]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Specimen Album Loose Prints Collection - Geo. S. Harris [P.9349.279, 283-284, 292, 298-307, 309, 317-318, 321, 328-329, 332, 436-437, 439, 441-442, 447, 451-453 & 455-456]

Title: [Scrapbook with periodical illustrations, comic valentines, and patent medicine advertisements]
Description: Eccentrically-arranged scrapbook predominantly containing newspaper clippings, patent medicine almanac advertisements, and comic valentines. Also contains scraps, trade cards, and labels. Clippings, many published in the sensational periodicals “National Police Gazette” and “Days’ Doings” primarily depict illustrations of murders and violence, crimes and punishments, human curiosities, animal attacks, human peril, women in distress, gender non-conforming people, evocative theatrical performances, acts of daring, and comic scenes in silhouette. Illustrations include H. P. Peer's 1879 jump from the Niagara Falls bridge and a fight between the elephant "Bolivar" and a camel in Van Amburgh's menagerie. Patent medicine advertisements primarily promote the products of Barker’s Horse, Cattle, and Poultry Powder; C. I. Hood’s Sarsaparilla; Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pill; and E. S. Well's Rough on Rats. Valentines satirize various professions and gender and ethnic stereotypes, including a cook, music teacher, machinist, hatter, seamstress, “French nurse –(from Ireland),” “novel reader,” “prudish young woman,” and “an old bore.”, Also contains some sentimental and genre imagery, including mothers and children, children playing, and pets; landscape and cityscape illustrations; racist caricatures of African Americans; Tobin trade cards depicting comical views of baseball players (p. 21); an advertisement for The Electric Era/ German Electric Belt Agency (Brooklyn, N.Y.); Dalziel Brother illustrations of scenes from popular Charles Dickens novels like “Nicholas Nickleby”; chromoxylograph illustration from Aunt Matilda series “The Little Deserter” (McLoughlin Bros., ca. 1869); illustrated children's book covers; and a finely-designed chromolithographic advertisement depicting allegorical figures, flowers, and produce to promote gardens (Lowell, Mass.)., Title supplied by cataloger., Small number of pages contain hand-coloring., Also originally included tucked-in partial editions of N.Y. newspapers issued in 1890. Issues housed in mylar and with scrapbook., Scrap depicting two racing horses and their jockeys pasted on back cover., Housed in phase box., Purchase 2012., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Date: [ca. 1869-ca. 1890, bulk 1880-1890]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.2012.42]

Main menu

Pages