Search results

Title: A Chinese laundry in Philadelphia
Description: Interior view of a Chinese owned and operated laundry in Philadelphia. In the center, shows the owner of the business attired in a top hat, white collared shirt, bowtie, suit jacket, waistcoat, and pants. He sits in a wooden chair with his legs crossed and smoking a cigarette as he supervises the workers. The four Chinese men laundry workers wear queue hairstyles and are attired in tunics, pants, and slip-on, cloth shoes. In the left, two men stand behind the counter and iron, one of whom spits water from his mouth onto the laundry. In the right, the man stands facing the viewer with his hand on top of his head while a man irons from another countertop. Steam rises up from the irons. There is a storage closet with the door partially open revealing shelves with folded laundry. More stacks of folded laundry sit on the countertops. In the right foreground, there are five irons warming on a heater and two baskets of laundry. A clock hangs on the wall., Title from item., Date and publication information from original source., Published in the June 3, 1876 issue of the Graphic, a British weekly illustrated newspaper., Text description of the engraving from the Graphic, p. 542: A Chinese Laundry in Philadelphia. Though not nearly so numerous as in California, where their presence has recently excited extreme hostility among the white working classes, the Chinese are to be found, though few and far between, in the Eastern States. There are several Chinese laundries in Philadelphia, and as they have only been recently introduced from California, they are almost as much objects of interest to Philadelphians as to foreigners. Our artist came across the laundry shown in our engraving unexpectedly. As soon as the Chinamen perceived him sketching it through the window, they rushed out and shouted after him, whereupon he made off, thinking it prudent to avoid a scene. The Celestial in European dress is the "boss," or master, who owns several laundries, and who attends to the customers and business arrangements. The manner of damping the clothes preparatory to ironing is peculiar, the operator fills his mouth with water, and squirts it over the linen., Gift of Linda Kimiko August., RVCDC
Date: June 3, 1876
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Ph Pr - 8x10 - Businesses - Chinese Laundry [P.2023.27.1]

Title: [Outdoor group]
Description: Set on a plantation, this outdoor scene of casual socializing aims to portray everyday slave life. Six slaves and a young white woman are loosely arranged in seated and standing positions, with the white woman occupying a central place in the image. Although one slave (front left) holds a pitchfork and another (front right) is positioned next to a small shovel and an over-turned bucket, the slaves appear to be at rest., Title page vignette in Charles Peterson's The Cabin and Parlor: or, Slaves and Masters (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Stereotyped by George Charles. Printed by King & Baird, c1852)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator: Beeler, Charles H., engraver
Date: [1878]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare 2 Wright 1878a 10231.D title page vignette, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2656

Title: The holiday dance
Description: Set on a plantation, this merry scene portrays a harvest dance. A man and a woman dance bare-foot to the music of a fiddler, who is perched high upon a stool. Others look on. A young man kneels in the foreground, his straw hat and hoe lying on the ground. In the background, two stocky, resolute-looking white women observe the festivities. Both wear kerchiefs, the ties of which, in one case, resemble devil's horns., Plate at the front of Charles Peterson's The Cabin and Parlor: or, Slaves and Masters (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Stereotyped by George Charles. Printed by King & Baird, c1852), np., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator: Beeler, Charles H., engraver
Date: [1878]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare 2 Wright 1878a 10231.D np, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2654

Title: Desperate conflict in a barn
Description: Engraving depicts an incident that is said to have occurred in a barn in Terrytown, Maryland in 1853. In search of freedom, four Virginia slaves, Robert Jackson, Craven Matterson, and the latter's two brothers escaped and travelled north. In Maryland, they were discovered by a man who saw them hiding in a thicket. According to the accompanying narrative, the man, who "talked like a Quaker," urged them to go to his barn for protection. The man, however, betrayed them, and a group of authorities arrived soon thereafter. A struggle ensued, during the course of which Jackson and Craven were shot, as well as the man who betrayed them., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 50., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Date: [1872]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 50, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2821

Title: A bold stroke for freedom
Description: Engraving depicts an incident that is said to have occurred near the Maryland state line on December 25, 1855. As the accompanying narrative suggests, six slaves from Virginia's Loudoun and Fauquier counties (Barnaby Grigby, his wife, Mary Elizabeth Grigby, Frank Wanzer, Emily Foster, and two others) had taken their master's horses and carriage, and were on their way to freedom. Near the Cheat River in Maryland, they were attacked by "six white men and a boy," who demanded their passes, and then ordered their surrender. The fugitives retaliated, and the four travelling in the carriage made a successful escape. Two others on horseback were assumed to have been captured., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 124., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Creator: Reed, C. H., engraver
Date: [1872]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 124, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2823

Title: The Christiana tragedy
Description: Depicts an incident that is said to have occurred in Christiana in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania in September 1851. A party of slave-hunters, emboldened by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, attempted to capture a number of black men as fugitive slaves. The slave-hunters tried to enter the home of a suspected fugitive, but they were denied access and shots were fired. In response, a group of approximately thirty to fifty blacks congregated to defend themselves and their neighbor. Fierce fighting ensued, and lives were lost., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 350., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Date: [1872]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 350, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2824

Title: Living in a cave
Description: Engraving shows Harry Grimes, a fugitive slave from North Carolina. During his 1857 escape, Grimes lived in the woods, taking shelter in a cave and a hollowed out poplar tree. Here, he builds a fire with some charcoal that he found., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 425., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Creator: Bensell, Edmund Birckhead, b. 1842, engraver
Date: [1872]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 425, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2825

Title: Religious dancing of the Blacks, termed "shouting"
Description: Illustration accompanies Chapter XXXIII, "The Religion of the Blacks, with Anecdotes Illustrating the Same." It is set in a Baptist church, and shows a type of dance called "shouting." According to Stearns, shouting usually took place just before a congregation broke up, when "the spirit [was] upon them." He included a lengthy description of shouting, which reads as follows: "A ring of singers is formed in an open space in the room, and they, without holding on to each others' hands, walk slowly around and around in a circle, the back of the foremost one coming close to the front side of the succeeding brother or sister. They then utter a kind of melodious chant, which gradually increases in strength, and in noise, until it fairly shakes the house, and it can be heard for a long distance. . . . The dancers usually bend their bodies into an angle of about forty-five degrees, and thus bent, march around, accompanying their steps, every second or so, with a quick, jerking motion, or jump, which I can compare to nothing else than the brisk jumping of a frog, . . . The performers also accompany the jerking of their bodies with a corresponding clapping of their hands, and motion of their arms. . . . Occasionally, one of the most zealous of the sisters, throws herself up so as to nearly touch the ceiling over their heads, and then falls down helplessly into the eager arms of some stout brother, who springs forward with alacrity to receive her." (p. 371-72), Plate in Charles Stearns's The Black Man of the South, and the Rebels: or, the Characteristics of the Former, and the Recent Outrages of the Latter (New York: For sale by American News Co., 1872), p. 370., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Daily Life.
Creator: Bricher & Conant, engraver
Date: [1872]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Stearns 19952.D p 370, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2820

Main menu