Clothing & Accessories

Work, play, fashion, economic class, religious faith, even politics—all these aspects of American life and more are woven into clothing. The Museum cares for one of the nation's foremost collections of men's, women's, and children's garments and accessories—from wedding gowns and military uniforms to Halloween costumes and bathing suits.

The collections include work uniforms, academic gowns, clothing of presidents and first ladies, T-shirts bearing protest slogans, and a clean-room "bunny suit" from a manufacturer of computer microchips. Beyond garments, the collections encompass jewelry, handbags, hair dryers, dress forms, hatboxes, suitcases, salesmen's samples, and thousands of fashion prints, photographs, and original illustrations. The more than 30,000 artifacts here represent the changing appearance of Americans from the 1700s to the present day.

Black and white print; half length portrait of a man (R. Walsh Jr.) with his head resting on his hand and his elbow resting on an open book.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print; half length portrait of a man (R. Walsh Jr.) with his head resting on his hand and his elbow resting on an open book.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
maker
Sully, Thomas
Childs, Cephas Grier
ID Number
DL.60.3135
catalog number
60.3135
accession number
228146
Black and white print; bust portrait of a man (William Bradford Reed). Facsimile of sitter's signature is below the image.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print; bust portrait of a man (William Bradford Reed). Facsimile of sitter's signature is below the image.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1855
depicted
Reed, William Bradford
maker
Wagner & McGuigan
Traubel, Morris H.
ID Number
DL.60.3128
catalog number
60.3128
accession number
228146
Color print of three men seated around a campfire while a fourth man tends donkeys. Rocky hill formations in the background. Plate from "U.S.P.R.R. Exp. & Surveys, 35th Parellel."Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Color print of three men seated around a campfire while a fourth man tends donkeys. Rocky hill formations in the background. Plate from "U.S.P.R.R. Exp. & Surveys, 35th Parellel."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
maker
Sinclair, Thomas
artist
Tidball, J. C.
ID Number
DL.60.3868
catalog number
60.3868
The frontpiece (also known as shield or badge) of firefighting helmets has been a distinctive part of the American firefighter’s helmet since it was developed by Henry Gratacap in the early 19th century. These frontpieces displayed a variety of information.
Description (Brief)
The frontpiece (also known as shield or badge) of firefighting helmets has been a distinctive part of the American firefighter’s helmet since it was developed by Henry Gratacap in the early 19th century. These frontpieces displayed a variety of information. The fire company's name and number appeared, often alongside the city or town where it was based. The frontpiece could also include the owner's initials and rank. Most fire helmets had leather frontpieces, but frontpieces could also be made of metal, especially on presentation helmets or those worn in parades.
This metal frontpiece was made by the Jahn and Oliver Engraving Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania around 1895. The front piece is made entirely of metal, with the overlapping monogram “VFA” in brass in the center. The initials “VFA” stands for the Veteran Firemen’s Association of Philadelphia, that was formed in 1887 after the volunteer firemen ceased active service in an effort to continue the foster camaraderie among veteran firefighters.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1895
maker
Jahn and Oliver Engraving Company
ID Number
2005.0233.1483
accession number
2005.0233
catalog number
2005.0233.1483
We do not know the name of the woman who wore this dress. Family tradition holds that it was worn by a member of the donor's family to the 1876 Centennial Exposition, which was America's 100th birthday party celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Description
We do not know the name of the woman who wore this dress. Family tradition holds that it was worn by a member of the donor's family to the 1876 Centennial Exposition, which was America's 100th birthday party celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Americans and foreign visitors traveled to Fairmont Park in Philadelphia to explore fifty acres of astonishing displays of the newest, the biggest, and the best of everything available, including the innovative Women’s Pavilion.
This dress may have been called a promenade gown. The slender look was emphasized by contrasting blue silk taffeta and navy blue velvet. The dress required more than fifteen yards of machine sewing and more than forty-five yards of skilled hand stitching. The round, gold-colored buttons used to close the center front and trim the lower bodice back, as well as the shape of the sleeves, were inspired by men's and women's clothing of the eighteenth century. The sturdy fabric added to the bottom of the skirt to protect the underside of the train does not show as much wear as the mohair braid edging its tip, suggesting that the wearer managed her train skillfully as she strolled around.
This two-piece bustle dress is constructed of medium blue silk and dark blue velvet. The boned, fitted medium blue silk bodice extends below the waist with no seam at the waistline. The dark blue stand collar and insert at the center front are edged with silk bias piping. The center front closure consists of eighteen metal buttons on the left side and worked buttonholes on the right side. The blue velvet at the center back comes to a point, extending into a decorative peplum with button trim. The sleeves are of a two-part construction of medium blue silk and dark blue velvet, with silk ruffles edged with lace at wrists. The skirt of medium blue silk has a dark blue velvet mid-front and hem panel and is cut straight at the front with pleats at the center back. The skirt is trained at the back with a draped bustle decorated with one dark blue bow at the left back. Fringe trims the velvet panel at the front. A brown glazed cotton lines the skirt, and the hem is stiffened.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1876
maker
unknown
ID Number
1984.0920.001
accession number
1984.0920
catalog number
1984.0920.001
This black and white tinted print depicts the seventh of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking.
Description
This black and white tinted print depicts the seventh of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking. This print depicts an interior scene of a crowd gathered around the body of a dead woman. The weapon, a broken bottle, lies on the floor at her feet. The husband stands next the fireplace and is being seized by a policeman. Another policeman consoles the crying daughter. The son, also crying, stands next to the fireplace.
This series of prints is by the English artist George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Cruikshank’s father, Isaac Cruikshank, was an artist who specialized in song sheets and caricatures and trained George and his brother Robert Cruikshank in these arts. George started as a caricaturist for magazines and children’s books. His most famous works included The Bottle and The Drunkard’s Children, designed and etched by Cruikshank to show the wickedness of alcohol. Cruikshank's father and brother were both alcoholics and he himself drank heavily until he took a vow of abstinence in 1847. These prints were originally published by David Bogue, who published most of Cruikshank’s other works in the 1850s. David Bogue, (1807–1856) was born in Scotland and moved to London in 1836. Bogue began working in Charles Tilt's bookshop as a publisher and bookseller in 1836 and became Tilt's partner in 1840. Bogue bought the shop in 1843. He was the principle publisher of Cruikshank’s short-lived periodicals, brief illustrated stories, and the Comic Almanack 1835-53. David Bogue published The Bottle series in 1847. Bogue suffered from heart disease and died in 1856 at the age of 48.
This print was produced by the lithographer George Gebbie. Gebbie immigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1862. He settled in Philadelphia and became a fine art printer and publisher. He died in 1892.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
maker
Gebbie, George
original artist
Cruikshank, George
ID Number
DL.60.2908
catalog number
60.2908
accession number
228146
Color print of a two-story fishing resort on the banks of a river (Delaware). A man is fishing from the end of a dock on which two couples stroll. A rowboat filled with men and women is in the right foreground.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Color print of a two-story fishing resort on the banks of a river (Delaware). A man is fishing from the end of a dock on which two couples stroll. A rowboat filled with men and women is in the right foreground.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
maker
Duval, Peter S.
artist
Scott, Thomas M.
ID Number
DL.60.3755
catalog number
60.3755
This black and white print depicts the sixth of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking. This print depicts an interior scene of a man attacking his wife.
Description
This black and white print depicts the sixth of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking. This print depicts an interior scene of a man attacking his wife. Their son and daughter are trying to intervene. Another woman is entering the room in the background. This series of prints is based on the George Cruikshank Bottle series.
This series of prints is by the English artist George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Cruikshank’s father, Isaac Cruikshank, was an artist who specialized in song sheets and caricatures and trained George and his brother Robert Cruikshank in these arts. George started as a caricaturist for magazines and children’s books. His most famous works included The Bottle and The Drunkard’s Children, designed and etched by Cruikshank to show the wickedness of alcohol. Cruikshank's father and brother were both alcoholics and he himself drank heavily until he took a vow of abstinence in 1847. These prints were originally published by David Bogue, who published most of Cruikshank’s other works in the 1850s. David Bogue, (1807–1856) was born in Scotland and moved to London in 1836. Bogue began working in Charles Tilt's bookshop as a publisher and bookseller in 1836 and became Tilt's partner in 1840. Bogue bought the shop in 1843. He was the principle publisher of Cruikshank’s short-lived periodicals, brief illustrated stories, and the Comic Almanack 1835-53. David Bogue published The Bottle series in 1847. Bogue suffered from heart disease and died in 1856 at the age of 48.
This print was produced by the lithographer George Gebbie. Gebbie immigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1862. He settled in Philadelphia and became a fine art printer and publisher. He died in 1892.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
maker
Gebbie, George
original artist
Cruikshank, George
ID Number
DL.60.2907
catalog number
60.2907
accession number
228146
Black & white print; half length portrait of a man (Cassius Marcellus Clay).Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black & white print; half length portrait of a man (Cassius Marcellus Clay).
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
depicted
Clay, Cassius Marcellus
maker
Hoffy, Alfred M.
Wagner & McGuigan
original artist
Plumbe, Jr., John
ID Number
DL.60.3105
catalog number
60.3105
accession number
228146
Black & white print; half length portrait of a man (Joel Roberts Pointsett). The facsimile of the sitter's signature serves as the title.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black & white print; half length portrait of a man (Joel Roberts Pointsett). The facsimile of the sitter's signature serves as the title.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1838
depicted
Poinsett, Joel Roberts
maker
Fenderich, Charles
Duval, Peter S.
ID Number
DL.60.3103
catalog number
60.3103
accession number
228146
I. A Happy Home in Danger From the Bottle. This black and white tinted print depicts the first of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking.
Description
I. A Happy Home in Danger From the Bottle. This black and white tinted print depicts the first of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking. This print depicts an interior scene of a man, a woman, and three children. The man and woman are seated at a table, where he is pouring a drink for her. They are surrounded by comfortable, middle-class furnishings that include a fireplace with a stove insert, pictures on the wall, and a tall case clock. A cat and a kitten play by the fire near the two younger children.
This series of prints is by the English artist George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Cruikshank’s father, Isaac Cruikshank, was an artist who specialized in song sheets and caricatures and trained George and his brother Robert Cruikshank in these arts. George started as a caricaturist for magazines and children’s books. His most famous works included The Bottle and The Drunkard’s Children, designed and etched by Cruikshank to show the wickedness of alcohol. Cruikshank's father and brother were both alcoholics and he himself drank heavily until he took a vow of abstinence in 1847. These prints were originally published by David Bogue, who published most of Cruikshank’s other works in the 1850s. David Bogue, (1807–1856) was born in Scotland and moved to London in 1836. Bogue began working in Charles Tilt's bookshop as a publisher and bookseller in 1836 and became Tilt's partner in 1840. Bogue bought the shop in 1843. He was the principle publisher of Cruikshank’s short-lived periodicals, brief illustrated stories, and the Comic Almanack 1835-53. David Bogue published The Bottle series in 1847. Bogue suffered from heart disease and died in 1856 at the age of 48.
This print was produced by the lithographer George Gebbie. Gebbie immigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1862. He settled in Philadelphia and became a fine art printer and publisher. He died in 1892.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
maker
Gebbie, George
original artist
Cruikshank, George
ID Number
DL.60.2902
catalog number
60.2902
accession number
228146
In the years following Lincoln’s assassination, lithographic prints depicting the Lincoln family became popular among the Northern American public, often produced as commemoratives during anniversary celebrations.
Description
In the years following Lincoln’s assassination, lithographic prints depicting the Lincoln family became popular among the Northern American public, often produced as commemoratives during anniversary celebrations. Since the family never sat for a formal portrait, artists relied on earlier photographs of its members to create their compositions, portraying the family members as they would have appeared at the start of Lincoln’s presidency. This black and white print from the late 1860s depicts the family members as they would have appeared at the start of Lincoln’s presidency. At center, President Lincoln sits cross-legged at a table, holding a book on his lap, as he looks up to Mary Todd at his right. Willie, leans against a table, gazing in the direction of his father. At the lower left, Tad marches into the scene, holding a toy drum. At the right, Robert Lincoln, dressed in his military uniform, looks out towards the viewer. Abraham Lincoln was not the only deceased family member at the time of this print’s creation. Willie had died from typhoid fever in 1862, sometime before the publication of this print. The print is “Respectfully Dedicated to the People of the United States.”
Joseph Hoover was the most prominent Philadelphia publisher of chromolithographed parlor prints during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1856, he established a woodturning and frame-making shop and began selling prints by 1865. Around 1868, he began supervising the lithography production at the firms of Duval & Hunter and James Queen, eventually founding his own printing plants in the mid-1870s. His chromolithographs won a medal of excellence at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. In 1893, he partnered with his son, Henry, and their firm produced between 600,000 and 700,000 chromolithographs per year.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
before 1869
depicted
Lincoln, Abraham
Lincoln, Robert Todd
Lincoln, Thomas
Lincoln, William Wallace
Lincoln, Mary Todd
maker
Hoover, Joseph
ID Number
DL.60.2575
catalog number
60.2575
accession number
228146
Color print of men and women on a veranda in the foreground viewing a covered bridge over a river (Schuylkill) and the buildings of a waterworks. The grounds of a park are in the background.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Color print of men and women on a veranda in the foreground viewing a covered bridge over a river (Schuylkill) and the buildings of a waterworks. The grounds of a park are in the background.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
maker
Bowen, John T.
ID Number
DL.60.3775
catalog number
60.3775
Color print, two horizontal panels depicting twenty one figures: twelve men, two women, and six children in fashions from 1852-53.
Description (Brief)
Color print, two horizontal panels depicting twenty one figures: twelve men, two women, and six children in fashions from 1852-53. The upper panel depicts an outdoor scene with a park overlooking a town in the background; the bottom panel depicts an outdoor scene with a lake in the background. Numbers below the figures are keyed to a separately printed descriptive text.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1852
maker
Sinclair, Thomas
ID Number
DL.60.3072
catalog number
60.3072
accession number
228146
Black and white print; half portrait of Miss Frances Anne Kemble, otherwise known as Fanny. She wears a dress with large puffy sleeves and her hair is upswept.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print; half portrait of Miss Frances Anne Kemble, otherwise known as Fanny. She wears a dress with large puffy sleeves and her hair is upswept.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1832
publisher
Stewart, S. M.
depicted
Kemble, Frances Anne
lithographer
Childs & Inman
artist
Newsam, Albert
Lawrence, Sir Thomas
ID Number
DL.60.2530
catalog number
60.2530
accession number
228146
This black and white tinted print depicts the fifth of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking.
Description
This black and white tinted print depicts the fifth of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking. This print depicts an interior scene of a family, now reduced to two children due to the starvation death of the toddler. Mother, father and son huddle near a meager fire, the mother holding a wine glass, the father holding a bottle. The daughter stands with her hand on the toddler's coffin. The mother and daughter are weeping. A fork is stuck in the wall and holds up a piece of fabric that is covering the window, and a candle is stuck in the wine bottle on the mantle.
This series of prints is by the English artist George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Cruikshank’s father, Isaac Cruikshank, was an artist who specialized in song sheets and caricatures and trained George and his brother Robert Cruikshank in these arts. George started as a caricaturist for magazines and children’s books. His most famous works included The Bottleand The Drunkard’s Children, designed and etched by Cruikshank to show the wickedness of alcohol. Cruikshank's father and brother were both alcoholics and he himself drank heavily until he took a vow of abstinence in 1847. These prints were originally published by David Bogue, who published most of Cruikshank’s other works in the 1850s. David Bogue, (1807–1856) was born in Scotland and moved to London in 1836. Bogue began working in Charles Tilt's bookshop as a publisher and bookseller in 1836 and became Tilt's partner in 1840. Bogue bought the shop in 1843. He was the principle publisher of Cruikshank’s short-lived periodicals, brief illustrated stories, and the Comic Almanack 1835-53. David Bogue published The Bottle series in 1847. Bogue suffered from heart disease and died in 1856 at the age of 48.
This print was produced by the lithographer George Gebbie. Gebbie immigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1862. He settled in Philadelphia and became a fine art printer and publisher. He died in 1892.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
maker
Gebbie, George
original artist
Cruikshank, George
ID Number
DL.60.2906
catalog number
60.2906
accession number
228146
This black and white tinted print depicts the second of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking. This print depicts an interior scene of a man, a woman, and three children.
Description
This black and white tinted print depicts the second of eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking. This print depicts an interior scene of a man, a woman, and three children. The father sits despondently next to the fire while the daughter hands a new bottle to the mother and the mother hands the daughter what appears to be a bundle of clothes. The cat walks across the table that is now pushed against the wall. Two younger children huddle together on a small table or footstool.
This series of prints is based on the Bottle series by the English artist George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Cruikshank’s father, Isaac Cruikshank, was an artist who specialized in song sheets and caricatures and trained George and his brother Robert Cruikshank in these arts. George started as a caricaturist for magazines and children’s books. His most famous works included The Bottle and The Drunkard’s Children, designed and etched by Cruikshank to show the wickedness of alcohol. Cruikshank's father and brother were both alcoholics and he himself drank heavily until he took a vow of abstinence in 1847. These prints were originally published by David Bogue, who published most of Cruikshank’s other works in the 1850s. David Bogue, (1807–1856) was born in Scotland and moved to London in 1836. Bogue began working in Charles Tilt's bookshop as a publisher and bookseller in 1836 and became Tilt's partner in 1840. Bogue bought the shop in 1843. He was the principle publisher of Cruikshank’s short-lived periodicals, brief illustrated stories, and the Comic Almanack 1835-53. David Bogue published The Bottle series in 1847. Bogue suffered from heart disease and died in 1856 at the age of 48.
This print was produced by the lithographer George Gebbie. Gebbie immigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1862. He settled in Philadelphia and became a fine art printer and publisher. He died in 1892.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
maker
Gebbie, George
original artist
Cruikshank, George
ID Number
DL.60.2903
catalog number
60.2903
accession number
228146
Black and white print, half length portrait of a man (William F. Johnson). A facsimille of his signature appears before the title.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print, half length portrait of a man (William F. Johnson). A facsimille of his signature appears before the title.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
maker
Newsam, Albert
Duval, Peter S.
original artist
England & Gunn
ID Number
DL.60.3219
catalog number
60.3219
Color print, two horizontal panels depicting twenty one figures: fifteen men, three women, and three children in fashions from 1850. The upper panel depicts an indoor scene; the bottom panel depicts an outdoor scene with a snow covered park.
Description (Brief)
Color print, two horizontal panels depicting twenty one figures: fifteen men, three women, and three children in fashions from 1850. The upper panel depicts an indoor scene; the bottom panel depicts an outdoor scene with a snow covered park. Numbers below the figures are keyed to a separately printed descriptive text.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1850
maker
Sinclair, Thomas
ID Number
DL.60.3074
catalog number
60.3074
accession number
228146
Colored print of an outdoor scene of a group of men and children with long rifles standing together in front of a large building and under a tree, preparing to shoot turkeys in the distant snow-covered field.
Description (Brief)
Colored print of an outdoor scene of a group of men and children with long rifles standing together in front of a large building and under a tree, preparing to shoot turkeys in the distant snow-covered field. Another group of similar men engage in the same activity in the background. Everyone is wearing tall bots and dressed in mid 19th Century outdoor clothing.
John Childs, was an engraver, lithographer, artist, and print colorist active in New York between the years 1836 to 1844, and in Philadelphia from 1848 through the 1860's . For a brief period while in New York, he published a quantity of political cartoons.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
after 1862
maker
Childs, John
ID Number
DL.60.2416
catalog number
60.2416
accession number
228146
After Lincoln’s assassination, printmakers faced a sudden demand from the Northern public for illustrations of the man that many perceived to be the savior of their nation.
Description
After Lincoln’s assassination, printmakers faced a sudden demand from the Northern public for illustrations of the man that many perceived to be the savior of their nation. Prints often made reference to the Emancipation Proclamation, fostering an emerging image of Lincoln as a steadfast supporter of human freedom. This commemorative print of Lincoln reading the Proclamation before his Cabinet shares many similarities with a variety of other popular wartime and postwar prints depicting the same event. On July 22, 1863, Lincoln first revealed his plans to issue the Proclamation to his Cabinet. They were hesitant at first, but ultimately gave them his support, provided that he wait to announce it until after a Union victory. Five days after the Union Army repelled the Southern invasion of Maryland at Antietam, his Cabinet met again to revise the initial draft of the Proclamation. It was issued on January 1, 1863, and freed all slaves living in areas of the nation under rebellion. This freedom ultimately relied on a Northern military victory and the Proclamation did not affect the millions of slaves living in the Border States that had not seceded. It did, however, recognize the abolition of American slavery as a stated objective of the war and allowed Africa-American men to serve as soldiers in the Union Army.
Little is known about the work’s artist, D. Wust, or its printer, the firm of Miechel & Plumly. Beneath the illustration, a caption reads, “Annual Greeting of the Carriers to the Patrons of ‘The Press’ / For January 1st, 1866.” It was therefore likely published in late 1865 by John W. Forney, the founder of the Philadelphia Press, for distribution to subscribers sometime around New Year’s Day.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1865
distribution date
1866-01-01
depicted
Lincoln, Abraham
Chase, Salmon Portland
Seward, William Henry
Blair, Montgomery
Welles, Gideon
Stanton, Edwin McMasters
Smith, Caleb Blood
Bates, Edward
maker
Meichel & Plumly
artist
Wust, D.
ID Number
DL.60.2549
catalog number
60.2549
accession number
228146
On May 22, 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas crisis, Massachusetts Republican Senator Charles Sumner delivered a speech to Congress in which he denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and demanded that Kansas be admitted to the Union as a free state.
Description
On May 22, 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas crisis, Massachusetts Republican Senator Charles Sumner delivered a speech to Congress in which he denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and demanded that Kansas be admitted to the Union as a free state. In his oration, he verbally attacked the pro-slavery South Carolina Senator, Andrew Butler, and called into question the man’s code of Southern chivalry, accusing him of taking slavery as his mistress. Two days later, Preston Brooks, a South Carolina Congressman and also Butler’s cousin, nearly beat Sumner to death on the Senate floor with a cane. Responses to the attack in the North and the South further polarized the people of the nation, leading it further down the path to war.
In the print, Brooks uses a bloody cane to strike the Massachusetts Senator, who has fallen out of his chair and lies on the ground below the Southerner, bleeding from gashes on his forehead. He holds in his right hand a quill he had been using to write on a document containing the word, “Kansas.” Behind the struggle, other Congressmen look on, appearing either disgusted or delighted. In the back left, Brooks’ fellow South Carolinian Representative, Laurence M. Keitt, prevents a bystander from interrupting.
The illustration is signed in the lower left hand corner by John L. Magee. Born in New York around 1820, Magee was initially employed by the lithographic firms of James Baillie and Nathaniel Currier. He started his own business in New York in 1850, but moved to Philadelphia sometime shortly after 1852. He was known for his political cartoons, which he produced until the 1860s.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
date made
ca 1856
depicted
Sumner, Charles
Brooks, Preston Smith
maker
Magee, John L.
ID Number
DL.60.3451
catalog number
60.3451
Color print of a large number of horse-drawn carriages on the road in front of a two-story brick road house (Turner"s Hotel).
Description (Brief)
Color print of a large number of horse-drawn carriages on the road in front of a two-story brick road house (Turner"s Hotel). Eighteen of the horses are numbered and indentified in a key below the image.
Description
A color print of a crowded road in front of a large roadhouse (Turner Hotel, Rape Ferry Rd.) filled with carriages and spirited horses. All of the carriages are occupied by fashionably dressed men. The buggies are without tops – they have flat floors and straight footboards. The roadhouse is in the colonial style. A two story structure stands with a large ring in the rear, three dormer windows above, and a veranda across the front. Here guests stand and watch. Stable boys wait outside the barn in the background. The grounds are well-kept with trees, shrubbery, and picket fences.
Point Breeze Park in Philadelphia was founded in 1855 and raced thoroughbreds for the first time in 1860. It was eventually converted into an automobile race course in the 1900s after trotting faded as a popular sport.
Pharazyn was a Philadelphia lithographer and colorist. He was born 1822 and died in 1902. He had offices at 103 South Street in 1856 and at 1725 Lombard Street in 1870. Made prints for different magazines, as well as fine prints for patrons. Created a large colored folio “Trotting Cracks of Philadelphia Returning from the Race at Point Breeze Park” in 1870. The horses are all named as usual in the subtitle, but the artists name isn’t given; this was normal as the horses were more important than the actual artists.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1870
maker
Pharazyn, H.
ID Number
DL.60.3557
catalog number
60.3557
This colorful chromolithograph contains an animated scene of the Union volunteer refreshment saloon located near the Navy Yard at Swanson and Washington Avenues in Philadelphia, as it appeared in November of 1863.
Description
This colorful chromolithograph contains an animated scene of the Union volunteer refreshment saloon located near the Navy Yard at Swanson and Washington Avenues in Philadelphia, as it appeared in November of 1863. Located on a railroad hub linking the North and the South, the saloon was staffed by volunteers and provided relief for Union troops to soldiers on their way to or returning from battlefields in the South. Its services included warm meals, temporary housing, medical services, and washing facilities. From its opening on May 27, 1861, to its closing on December 1, 1865, over 800,000 men were assisted in this saloon and served over 1,025,000 meals. In the print, a crowd of civilians and a few wounded soldiers line the street to welcome a formation of soldiers who parade down the road towards the saloon. At the right, men another unit depart the saloon and board a Philadelphia, Wilmington, & Baltimore railroad car, bound for the battlefront. A band dressed in road uniforms performs patriotic songs while American flags are waved in the crowd and dot the skyline of the scene. The names of men who were involved in collecting donations for the saloon are listed in the lower margin along with the names of its committee members.
The Philadelphia saloons received support from the United States Sanitary Commission, a relief agency approved by the War Department on June 18, 1861 to provide assistance to sick, wounded, and travelling Union soldiers. Although the leaders of the Commission were men, the agency depended on thousands of women, who collected donations, volunteered as nurses in hospitals, and offered assistance at rest stations and refreshment saloons. They also sponsored Sanitary Fairs in Northern cities, raising millions of dollars used to send food, clothing, and medicine to Union soldiers.
The print was created by James Fuller Queen, a pioneering chromolithographer active in Philadelphia, who served in a Civil War militia between 1862 and 1863. Its printer, Thomas S. Sinclair, was a Scottish immigrant to Philadelphia who worked in the lithographic shop of John Collins, before taking over the business the next year. His firm was profitable into the 1880s, producing maps, city views, certificates, book illustrations, political cartoons, sheet music covers, and fashion advertisements.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1861
lithographer
Sinclair, Thomas
artist
Queen, James
ID Number
DL.60.3799
catalog number
60.3799

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