Resources at LCP:

Calvert Lithographing Co., Granite floor paint. Manf’d only by Acme white lead and color works (Michigan, 1890). Chromolithograph. [In the Gwen Goldman African Americana Trade Card Collection from The Library Company of Philadelphia]

In the 18th century, advertising was limited to newspapers and magazines with written appeal and possibly a black and white illustration. The popularity of trading cards in the 19th century was due to in-color chromolithographs, typically 2×4 or 3×5, with captivating images to get consumers’ attention. Usually, those images feature caricatures of African Americans in domestic or “nostalgic” antebellum slavery imagery. Trade cards were made for, and consumed by, white middle-class women. The two Black women talk to one another, the one on the left complaining about the floor paint’s low quality, while the one on the right dances, promoting the fast-drying quality of the branded ACME granite floor paint. The commodification of the Black body in these trade cards echoes the commodification of slavery. The enslaved Black woman looms over the Black domestic that is surveilled by the white gaze as the white men who appear in the doorframe on each panel.

Sojourner Truth, I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance (Philadelphia, 1864). Photograph. [From The Library Company of Philadelphia]

Sojourner Truth, the popular abolitionist best known for her speech, “Ain’t I a woman?”, is seen sitting in a chair holding knitting, resting on a nearby table, in this portrait. Truth would sell her portrait as a carte-de-visite with her quote, “I sell the shadow to support the substance,” during her lectures to support herself and the abolitionist movement. The “shadow” can be interpreted as Truth herself in her portrait, and the “substance” as the abolition movement and the Black community as a whole. Contrasting the trade cards, Truth sells her own image; an image she copyrighted before the United States implemented one, showcasing Truth’s agency and denouncing the white gaze that seeks to objectify and commodify Black bodies.

Edward Williams Clay, “How you like de new fashion shirt..?” (Philadelphia, 1828-1830). Etching. [In the Life in Philadelphia Collection from The Library Company of Philadelphia]

Popular cartoon series, “Life in Philadelphia,” created by Edward Williams Clay, made fun of the growing Black Philadelphian community; the largest freedmen community in the United States during the 19th century, through caricature art, fashion, and humor. The most prominent way to differentiate and showcase one’s status was through fashion. With the abolition of slavery in Northern states and changing state legislation in late 1700s and early 1800s, more Black people gained their freedom and climbed their way up to the middle class. Fashion as a key difference; there was little room to differentiate Black middle class from the white middle class. The “Life in Philadelphia” series depicted the differentiation through visual representation. The Black man, with exaggerated features in patterned, colorful attire, asks the Black woman in a stereotyped vernacular, “How you like de new fashion shirt…?” With the rise of popular minstrel characters of Black dandies mixed with the cultural humor surrounding fashion, Clay curates the Black couple as posers and unable to assimilate. With outdated fashion and the misuse of Roman mythology, stating “…Pluto de God of War!” The series attempts to naturalize Black people as racially inferior intellectually and socially.

Gallo W. Cheston, Portrait of Octavious V. Catto (Philadelphia, 1870). Photograph. [In portrait album of well-known 19th century African American men of Philadelphia from The Library Company of Philadelphia]

Gallo W. Cheston, one of the only known Black photographers in 19th-century Philadelphia, advertised his services as “near perfection as possible”. He took many photos of Black men, women, and children, adding different modifications, notably blush to portraits of women and young girls. Cheston’s most prominent figure he’d take a portrait of was abolitionist and educator Octavious V. Catto. While “Life in Philadelphia” depicted the freed Black community as illegitimate middle-class subjects, Catto’s portrait, and Cheston’s other portraits, combat that narrative with real-life accounts of the free Black community in Philadelphia. Catto sits proudly in his portrait, wearing a coat jacket with a small bowtie. Clay depicted Black people in the idealized white citizenship that wanted Black people to assimilate into white society quietly, almost unnoticeable. Catto advocated for abolition and education for the African American community; to not crumble and hide under white society and judgment. Catto’s portrait and Cheston’s portraits as a whole represent the real African Americans in Philadelphia who were ready to leave their mark, actively countering “Life in Philadelphia.”

Thomas Nast, Past and Future (Philadelphia, 1864). Wood Engraving. [From The Library Company of Philadelphia]

Past and Future, by prominent cartoonist Thomas Nast, depicts the past and future of the Union’s victory of the Civil War, specifically through emancipation. The middle image shows a multigenerational family gathering in a domestic space. The left side of the print shows the past: a violent scene of slavery and a slave auction. The right side shows the future: African Americans getting paid for their work and children attending public school. The surrounding images are of white iconography that represent freedom, most notably in the bottom circle image, Father Time carrying a baby angel as it breaks the chains off of an enslaved man. While Nast’s print arguably showcases a positive scene of celebration for African Americans, the print curates a flat image of Africans Americans as passive subjects who did not contribute to the progress of emancipation. In the domestic scene at the top, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, “The Great Emancipator,” looms over the family. Lincoln’s portrait and other white iconography, although small, frame the process of emancipation as white-dominated. This print, and other famous race-uplifting print by Joseph Hoover, “Heroes of the Colored Race” (1881), limit Black complexity and agency. The connection to Blackness with plantation or slavery scenes is common for race upliftment prints. The plantaion were scenes of resistance in African American history, but romanticized, or violent scenes done onto Black bodies are usually chosen to be represented by white cartoonists.

Patrick H. Reason, Truth Shall Make You Free (Boston, 1839). Engraving. [From The Library Company of Philadelphia]

Born a free man, Patrick H. Reason, a prodigy of engraving, made illustrations and images of abolition and anti-slavery advocacy for circulation. Liberty stands in the middle of the print, emphasized by a ray of light holding a book, most likely symbolizing the power of education in the process towards freedom. A slave on the left breaks his chains, and a young white girl teaches slaves the alphabet on the right side of the image. Reason’s prints were made and circulated for people in abolitionist societies, noting that those societies had both white and black people participating. Reason showcases that the progress to freedom needs the collaboration of white and black people; however, the image of the white girl teaching slaves the alphabet mirrors Samuel Jennings’s “Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences” (1792), the first American-born painter to address the issues of slavery. Liberty teaches the slaves just as the young girl does in Reason’s engraving, calling into question why white/colonial influence is essential to freedom.

Moses Williams, cutter of profiles (Philadelphia, 1803). Silhouette. [From The Library of Philadelphia]

Moses Williams was born a slave to manumitted parents, but due to the 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition, Williams would remain a slave until the age of 28 in 1804. His slaver owner, Charles Willson Peale, had Williams work in his museum, where Williams learned to cut profile silhouettes to extreme accuracy. Due to Williams’ skill and better accuracy compared to the profile machine, Williams popularized profile silhouettes in the 19th century, self-marking his silhouettes “Moses Williams, cutter of profiles”. While many of Williams’ profiles are assumed to be of white people, this particular profile seems to be depicting a Black woman. The profiles of the unknown people in Williams’ silhouettes emphasize the shape of the sitter’s features, highlighting the bridge of the nose and the shape of the lips. Caricature art exaggerates and manipulates the Black body into grotesque, sometimes monstrous forms to dehumanize and differentiate the Black subjects from the white subjects. The sitter’s features that are usually targeted are now showcased with extreme accuracy and care. The beauty of the unknown sitter lies flat, untouched by racialized imagery.

Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, A Narrative of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793: and a Refutation of some Censures, Thrown Upon Them in some Late Publications (Philadelphia, 1794).

Community leaders Richard Allen and Absalom Jones published this pamphlet in 1794 as a refutation of false representations of the Black community’s action during the Yellow Fever epidemic the year prior. The lettering arrangement and type size of the pamphlet emphasize these words: “NARRATIVE”, “BLACK PEOPLE”, and “A REFUTATION”. Just based on these words, the Black community of Philadelphia authors published their own narrative to refute a claim. The Black community stepped in as nurses, catetakers, and gravediggers when influential white figures left Philadelphia. Through the visuality of the title page, the Black community showcases a counternarrative that refutes the beliefs and accusations of the Black community. While the pamphlet outdates the eventual circulation caricature cartoonists, Allen and Jones counter the negative depictions of Black bodies, the Black middle class, and complicity that tries to veil over African Americans’ self-images.