Black & white print; full length portrait of a man holding a hat and cane in an outdoor setting (Andrew Jackson at his home, The Hermitage). Facsimilie of sitter's signature serves as the title.
Black and white print of the buildings of a city in the distance with a point of land jutting into a body of water in the foreground. A couple with a child and dog are on a grassy spot on the left. Sailing vessels are on the water to the right and in front of the city in the background.
Black and white print of a fleet of sailing ships: sixteen barks and ships, four pilot boats, and a revenue cutter. All are identified below the image.
Description
On December 19, 1861, under orders from Rear Admiral Samuel Francis DuPont, a fleet of 24 aging whaleships weighted down with stones were sunk in Charleston Harbor. The supervisors of the Union blockade hoped that this “Stone Fleet” would deter Confederate blockade runners from entering the port of Charleston. This print depicts 21 of the ships, each of which is identified by a key in the lower margin. These vessels include four pilot boats (Rescue, Richmond, Effort, and Vision), eight barks (Garland, American, Harvest, Leonidas, Amazon, Cossack, Frances Henrietta, and Herald), eight ships (Maria Theresa, Rebecca Simms, South America, Archer, Courier, Potomac, Kensington, and L.C. Richmond), and a revenue cutter (Varina).
The print was drawn by Benjamin Russell (1804-1885), a painter and lithographer from New Bedford, Massachusetts, who had worked on a whaling ship from 1841 to 1845. His illustration of the Stone Fleet was printed by L. Prang and Company. Louis Prang (1824-1910) was born in Breslau, Prussian Silesia, and immigrated to America in 1850. Settling in Boston, he began his lithographic career in 1856, partnering with Julius Mayer. In 1860, he established his own firm, which grew to become one of the largest producers of American colored lithographs during the 19th century. The company’s first lithographic prints were Civil War battle scenes, maps, and portraits of military and political leaders. Louis Prang & Co. remained in operation until 1898, producing greeting cards, facsimiles of American and European paintings, and natural history prints.
Few products are more symbolic of household life in post-World War II America than Tupperware. Made of plastic, intended for service in the suburban kitchen, and with clean and modern design, Tupperware represented "tomorrow's designs with tomorrow's substances." The Museum's collections include over 100 pieces of Tupperware, dating from 1946 through 1999. This bowl and cover were made by Tupperware Corporation, Woonsocket, R.I. (bowl), and Farnumsville, Mass. (lid), 1946–1958 and donated by Glenn O. Tupper.
Beginning in the 1930s, chemist Earl S. Tupper (1907–1983) experimented with polyethylene slag, a smelly, black waste product of oil refining processes, to develop uses for it. He devised translucent and opaque colored containers that he first marketed in 1942 as "Welcome Ware," then added lids with a patented seal later in the decade.
Modeled after the lid of a paint can, the lid to a Tupperware container was to be closed with a "burp," to create a partial vacuum and make the seal tight. The product was designed to appeal to the growing number of housewives who worked in suburban kitchens with modern appliances, including large refrigerators that allowed once-a-week trips for grocery shopping at the supermarket. These women formed a market for new and effective methods of food storage. Tupperware's water-tight, airtight seal promised preservation of freshness and limited spills or spoilage.
Yet the capabilities of the new product were not obvious to consumers at first, and Tupper's containers did not sell well in retail stores. A Michigan woman named Brownie Wise thought of marketing Tupperware through the home-sales method. Wise developed the system of Tupperware parties, at which a demonstrator could show the uses and advantages of Tupperware. As Tupperware became a staple of many American kitchens, some women found job opportunities in Tupperware sales.
This hand-colored allegorical print depicts the course of destruction through drinking in a series of symbols. It was designed to impress the dangers of drinking alcohol. A train labeled "Alcohol" is stopped at "Drunkard's Curve Station." It has left a tranquil valley and is heading toward doom in a land of evil serpents (as in Eden), skeletons, a vampire bat, and what appears to be a dangerous route to destruction, with fictional station names like "Horrorland," "Maniacville", "Prisonton" and “Woeland." The train runs on grain alcohol with the piston working in a decanter. Numerous travelers who can no longer pay the fare are lying abandoned, sick, or passed out along the side of the tracks, while others appear to be looking for ways to escape. Station names bear a cautionary tale of scriptural citations along the left and right borders and below the image is a considerable amount of interpretive text.
The print was issued by the Massachusetts Temperance Alliance, engraved by Nathaniel Rudd of Boston, and published by Reverend Steadman Wright Hanks in his book The Crystal River Turned Upon the Black Valley Railroad and Black Valley Country -- A Temperance Allegory (also known as The Black Valley: The Railroad and the Country). Hanks called the print "probably the most successful temperance lecture in the country." Stedman Wright Hanks (1811-1889) was a Congregational minister in Lowell, Massachusetts, as well as an author, artist, and fervent supporter of both the temperance and anti-slavery movements. Hanks spoke to audiences around the United States about the evils of overindulging in alcohol. In addition to his book about the Black Valley Railroad, his published works included Sailor Boys, or, Light on the Seaand Mutineers of the "Bounty and compiled a temperance song book and served as a representative in the Massachusetts General Court. He is also noted for performing the sermon commemorating John Quincy Adams death at the St. John Street Congregational Church.
Black and white print of a two-story wooden house on a street corner. A man (Abraham Lincoln?) and a child are standing inside the fence in front of the house. A carriage and men on horseback are in the street in the foreground and pedestrians walk along the street.
Description
This undated, black and white print of Lincoln’s residence in Springfield, Illinois, was most likely created in the period of high public demand for Lincoln images around the time of his assassination, during which many Northerners felt a desire to display a representation of the man they believed to be the savior of their nation. Lincoln lived in this two-story, twelve-room home from 1844 to 1861. In the print, men on horseback, women with parasols, and a horse-drawn buggy pass all by the residence on the road. A beardless Abraham Lincoln and one his sons stand near the entrance to the home.
On February 6, 1861, about 700 friends, neighbors, and well-wishers came to his residence to bid him farewell before he left for Washington. Lincoln departed Springfield on February 11, 1861, for his inauguration, but would never return to this home alive. His oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, donated the family home to the state of Illinois in 1887 and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.
Louis Prang (1824-1910) was born in Breslau, Prussian Silesia, and immigrated to America in 1850. Settling in Boston, he began his lithographic career in 1856, partnering with Julius Mayer. In 1860, he established his own firm, which grew to become one of the largest producers of American colored lithographs during the 19th century. The company’s first lithographic prints were Civil war battle scenes, maps, and portraits of military and political leaders. Louis Prang & Co. remained in operation until 1898, producing greeting cards, facsimiles of American and European paintings, and natural history prints. The print was published by S.G. Lane at 21 Cornhill.
A color print of a sleigh pulled by two horses overtaking an elderly couple in a sleigh pulled by a single horse. The sleigh pulled by two horses is tipping over, spilling its driver, still holding onto the reins, onto the ground. Mountains are in the distance, and the road is covered with snow and bordered with a stone fence. A church spire indicates a village.
Haskell and Allen’s most memorable productions were their horse prints. A Boston based publisher of lithographs, the firm seems to have issued more large folio images than small. Haskell began as a print seller with Haskell and Ripley (1868) but in 1869 he began a partnership with George Allen. In 1873 they moved to 61 Hanover St in Boston where they prospered for a few years. They went bankrupt in 1878.
A color print of two chestnut horses (Lancet and Fearnaught Boy) with light manes pulling a cutter on a country road. They are joined by a T-shaped tongue, and their harnesses are light and handsome. The driver is wearing a black coat with lapels, gloves, a boat-shaped hat, and a beaver rug over his knees. He is probably their owner David Nevins, Jr. A split rail fence borders the road. Mountains are in the distance, and the landscape is covered with snow.
Lancet and Fearnaught Boy were owned by David Nevins Jr. of Framingham, Massachusetts.
Haskell and Allen’s most memorable productions were their horse prints. A Boston based publisher of lithographs, the firm seems to have issued more large folio images than small. Haskell began as a print seller with Haskell and Ripley (1868) but in 1869 he began a partnership with George Allen. In 1873 they moved to 61 Hanover St in Boston where they prospered for a few years. They went bankrupt in 1878.
A color print after a photograph of a four-horse carriage thought to have belonged to George Washington. Two men in high silk hats are pictured. One is in the driver’s seat and one is standing by the door. The background has several houses and a church. A crest labeled “Exitus Acta Probat” is in the lower margin. The image was taken of the carriage as it was used during a Washington birthday parade in 1872 by the United Order of American Mechanics of New York City as discussed n the inscription below the image. The carriage was created while Washington was president in Philadelphia and preserved by William Dunlap of Philadelphia.
The lithograph was created by John H. Daniels (1828-1901) a printer, engraver, and lithographer from Boston. Daniels was noted for portaits, landscapes, and images of local events.
This color print depicts the 37th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry at camp in an open field near Brandy Station, Virginia. On the right, some men are being drilled while those on the left have time to relax. They are shown playing cards, smoking, conversing, playing leapfrog, and taking part in a ball game, possibly cricket. In the background are seventeen rows of log cabins and in the far right background is a plantation house set in a grove of trees.
Although this print makes camp life away from the fighting seem idyllic, an 1884 history of the 37th Massachusetts reveals that the men were actually uncomfortable during their time at Brandy Station, since they were exposed to the cold winds of early winter and firewood was difficult to obtain.
This print was published by the lithographer John Henry Bufford. The son of a sign painter and gilder, Bufford trained with Pendleton's Lithography in Boston, 1829-1831. He worked in New York with George Endicott and Nathaniel Currier (1835-1839) before returning to Boston where he had a good reputation for printing and publishing popular framing prints, commercial work, labels, and trade cards. The company went through several iterations and name changes until about 1865. He became the chief artist for Benjamin Thayer until buying out the firm to found J. H. Bufford & Co. (1844-1851). He continued to work in the lithography and publishing business for the remainder of his life. In 1865, his sons Frank and Henry John became partners in Bufford & Sons or J.H. Bufford’s Sons Litho. Co. After his death they continued the family business as Bufford Brothers and as Bufford Sons Engraving & Lithographing Company until 1911.
The tub takes its name from its form in the shape of a hat. The patient sat either on the bath’s ledge or on a chair outside the tub with his or her feet and legs in the center of the basin. The Dover Stamping Company, a tinware firm in Boston, Massachusetts, listed this form as such in their 1869 catalog. The spout for emptying the bath water is beneath the ledge.
We know of Nathaniel Waterman, the tub’s maker, through his membership in the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association and his listings in the Boston City Directories at 85 Cornhill Street from 1842 to 1846. He learned the tinsmith trade at a young age and his firm, the Waterman Kitchen and House Furnishing Wareroom, existed in Boston for over forty years. According to accounts, his store was a “veritable museum of all conceivable household necessities and conveniences.”*
For more information on bathing and bathtubs in the 19th and early 20th centuries, please see the introduction to this online exhibition.
*Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. Annals of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, 1795–1892. (Boston: Press of Rockwell and Churchill, 1892): p. 100.
Color print of a dark brown trotting horse pulling a sulky and driver. White picket fence in background.
Description
A color print of a dark brown stallion pulling a sulky and driver on a race track. The equipment is streamlined and colorful. The driver wears a maroon jacket, white shirt, purple pants, a blue cap and yellow gloves. The track is enclosed by a white picket fence.
Ben Morrill was foaled in 1868 from Winthrop Morrill and the Harrison Ames Mare in Winthrop, Maine. He was owned by T.B. Williams. His career ran from 1872-79. Ben Morrill never reached the level of the Grand Circuit horses, but he was well loved throughout New England and Canada and a particular favorite in Boston. On October 29, 1874 Ben Morrill, driven by J.J. Bowen, won two out of nine heats at Prospect Park Fairgrounds in a race for trotters that had never raced under 2:30. Ben Morrill sired seven trotters that reached the under 2:30 achievement.
Haskell and Allen’s most memorable productions were their horse prints. A Boston based publisher of lithographs, the firm seems to have issued more large folio images than small. Haskell began as a print seller with Haskell and Ripley (1868) but in 1869 he began a partnership with George Allen. In 1873 they moved to 61 Hanover St in Boston where they prospered for a few years. They went bankrupt in 1878.
Color print of a trotting horse (Capt. McGowan) pulling a sulky on a racetrack. A white picket fence borders the track. The caption indicates that this is River Side Park, Brighton, Mass. on Oct. 31, 1865.
Description
A color print of a brown horse attached by a light harness to a sulky with a driver who is intent on holding the reins. The driver wears a heavy red sweater and beaked cap. The sulky is red and highly polished. A picket fence borders the track. Pretentious country homes are in the wooded area beyond the park. It is a scene of River Side Park, Brighton, Mass. on Oct. 31, 1865.
Captain McGowan was bred in 1857 by Sovereign and Sally Miller, but his pedigree is debated. It is believed that he was born in Kentucky and owned by Samuel Emerson of Boston. He set a record in 1865 of trotting 20 miles in one hour (56 minutes, 25 seconds).