Search results

Title: South east corner of Third, and Market Street. Philadelphia
Description: Street scene depicting the bustling southeast corner of Third and Market Streets. Several vendors, mostly women, sell meat and produce from their basic stands and baskets to the numerous patrons, including two Black women in kerchiefs and shawls, milling on Market Street. View includes the commercial business block erected in 1792 by prosperous jeweler and developer Joseph Cooke, known as "Cooke's Folly." The lavish building, containing residences and stores to have been won as lottery prizes, was demolished in 1838 after several years of decay from lack of investment., Title from item., Illustrated in S. Robert Teitelman's Birch's views of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1982), pl. 8., Accessioned 1979., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator: W. Birch & Son
Date: 1799
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Birch's views [Sn 8/P.2276.15]

Title: High Street, from Ninth Street. Philadelphia
Description: View of High (Market) Street from Ninth depicting a detachment of the First City Troop of Philadelphia drilling on horseback. The troop promenades up the busy street where several horse-drawn carts and a dray travel and several pedestrians, including an African American man and boy (in the right), watch the guard and/or stroll the tree-lined sidewalks. A market shed is seen in the distance. The First City Troop, one of the oldest continually mounted U.S. military units, was organized in 1774 to defend against British invasion. The troop used a variety of arenas to perform drills including circuses, riding schools, and various public grounds., Title from item., Illustrated in S. Robert Teitelman's Birch's views of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1982), pl. 12., Accessioned 1979., 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: W. Birch & Son
Date: 1799
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Birch's views [Sn 12/P.2276.24]

Title: The battle at Bunker's Hill near Boston, June 17th, 1775
Description: Commemorative print after John Trumbull's historical painting based on his eyewitness account of the battle while serving as a commissioned officer during the American Revolution. Dramatically depicts the scene of American Major General Joseph Warren's death proceeding the Americans' retreat from the hill. Amidst a melee of activity, Warren lays dying in the arms of an American militiaman who fends off a bayonet pointed down over his body by an English soldier. British Major John Small restrains the bayonet of his soldier as Americans Captain Thomas Gardner, holding a musket, Major Andrew McClary, and Colonel William Prescott stand guard over their fallen compatriot. Behind Small, British Major John Pitcairn, mortally wounded, is held up by Lieutenant William Pitcairn and to the far right American Lieutenant Thomas Grovesnor stands en guarde shielding an armed African American man usually identified as Peter Salem, credited as the fatal shooter of Pitcairn, but more likely Grovesnor's enslaved man. British Generals William Howe, Henry Clinton, and Lieutenant Francis Lord Rawdon, flag in hand, continue the charge in the background. Other American soldiers involved in the battle include: Colonel Israel Putnam who gallantly leads the retreat; Rev. Samuel McClintock; Major Willard Moore, as well as an African American soldier, possibly Peter Salem. American Lieutenant Colonel Moses Parker and British Lieutenant Colonel Sir Robert Abercromby lay dying., Title from item., Theodore Sizer's The works of Colonel John Trumbull (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 95., The Library of Congress' An album of American battle art, 1755-1918. (Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Printing Office, 1947), 27-30., See Elisa Tamarkin, Anglophilia: deference, devotion, and antebellum America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 137-8 for Peter Salem misidentification., 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., Muller, was a renown German painter, engraver, and professor, commissioned, following the refusal of the English artist community, to engrave Trumbull's historic painting. Muller completed the painting in 1786 at his mentor Benjamin West's London studio.
Creator: Müller, Johann Gotthard, 1747-1830, engraver
Date: 1798
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - American Revolution [1142.F.4]

Title: Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African
Description: Bust portrait of the British, Black free man and abolitionist, Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the earliest and most influential autobiographies by a formerly enslaved person. He is attired in a dark-colored jacket with a collar and buttons and a white collared shirt, cravat, and waistcoat. He holds the Bible in his right hand, which is open to “Acts Chap. IV. V. 12.”, Title from item., Publication information and date inferred from source in which the portrait was originally included., Published as the frontispiece in Olaudah Equiano's The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano...(New York: W. Durrell, 1791). (LCP Am 1791 Equ, Log 3936.D)., Accessioned after 1870 and before 1900., 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: Tiebout, Cornelius, 1777-1832, engraver
Date: [1791]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Portrait Prints - E [1885.F.145]

Title: These are to certify, that [blank] is a member of the New-Jersey Society, for promoting the abolition of slavery. [blank] Presdt. Secy. [blank]
Description: Abolition society certificate depicting a white, Federal-era man pointing toward a chained, kneeling enslaved man who declares, "Am I not a Man and brother!" In the left, the enslaved man, attired in a white loincloth and with chains binding his hands to his feet, kneels down on his right knee upon a marble pedestal and clasps his hands together. In the right, the white man, attired in a white cravat, a waistcoat, a jacket, breeches, and black shoes, stands and holds in his left hand a Bible opened to Isaiah 61:1 atop the marble altar, which is inscribed with the verse: "He came to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Heavenly beams shine down upon them through an opening in the clouds. The New Jersey abolition society was established in 1793., Unused certificate., Title from item., Illustration of a kneeling male slave on the certificate 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 kneeling 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., Accessioned 1968., 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: [ca. 1800]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC-Certificates [7762.F]

Main menu