The Wards and Francis Mahan

Philadelphia, Paris & New-York Fashions, for Spring & Summer of 1864. Philadelphia: Francis Mahan, 1864. Chromolithograph.

By the 1840s, entrepreneurial tailors were not simply making clothes but pursuing related business ventures. The Wards—Allen and his sons Samuel (ca. 1813-1877?) and Asahel (ca. 1817-1895), whose work can be seen elsewhere in the exhibition, sold tape measures, tailors’ crayons, shears, trimmers, patterns, patented protractors, and other tools to “take the measure of a man.” Their fiercest rival was Francis Mahan (ca. 1790-1871). For years, Allen Ward and Francis Mahan publicly accused the other of stealing his tailoring systems, and Mahan brought a libel suit against Ward in 1840.

Some tailors also became publishers, commissioning seasonal “fashion plates.” Other tailoring shops would purchase these posters for about a dollar and hang them in their windows to show that they could provide garments in the latest styles. The Wards benefitted from having a long-standing relationship with Matthias Weaver, one of the city’s most proficient lithographers; in at least one instance, they paid him for his services with a new suit.

The plates here, representing the work of the Wards and Mahan, show people engaged in various genteel leisure activities, such as playing the piano, riding horses, and hunting against a backdrop that resembles the landscape of Manayunk’s mills. The image on the right, produced during the Civil War, places Union generals Henry Morris Naglee and Nathaniel P. Banks in the foreground, with soldiers’ tents behind them.

 

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