Library Company of Philadelphia
To end this Black History Month theme of Black families, here’s a stereograph of two people becoming one! The image depicts a ceremony of a young African American couple getting married in a room filled with placards inscribed with religious proverbs. One of the attendants altered a placard to have it read “us” instead of “me.”
A darktown wedding, the ceremony [graphic]. Philadelphia: C.H. Graves, Publisher, c1901.
We hope you all are staying safe after yet another round of wintry weather!
Connie King, Curator of Women’s History, wrote about this piece of sheet music: ‘The woman bicyclist on the cover of this sheet music is the “scorcher,” slang for a bicycle racer. In the 1860s, calling a woman bicyclist a “scorcher” would have had profoundly negative connotations, suggesting wild hedonism (of a gender-inappropriate kind!). But by the 1890s, the negative connotations had diminished and both men and women were happily riding bicycles, joining bicycle clubs, and … apparently … dancing to music inspired by bicycling.’
According to suffragist Susan B. Anthony, bicycling “did more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” Check out Connie King’s blog post about women and bicycling here (and for information about her upcoming collection review) here.
George Rosey. The scorcher: march and two-step. New York: Jos. W. Stern & Co., [1897?]
Friday check-in, how’s everyone feeling? Weekend ready?
Illuminated Manuscript Lions from Gallican Psalter with Canticles. Augsburg, Germany, ca. 1520.
when you can’t pick just one…
On January 1, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that “freed all those enslaved.”
This woodcut image on the cover of “Negro’s Friend: On the Ease, Safety, and Advantages of Liberating the Enslaved Negroes” depicts an emancipated Black family with work tools in the background and accompanying text that reads “Such is the great Author of our nature’s pleasure, who has made man free, and assigned to him the earth, that he might cultivate his possession with the sweat of his brow; but still should possess his liberty.”
-Jasmine Smith, African American History Subject Specialist and Reference Librarian.
[An emancipated family. London: s.n, 1830?].
Even though Valentine’s Day was yesterday, we hope you’re all still feeling the love!
William Rau, Views of a wedding ceremony, ca. 1897. Albumen on stereograph mount.
These dashing Trumpeter Hornbills are here to herald the long weekend ahead! Stay warm!
This illustration is from Daniel Giraud Elliot’s A Monograph of the Bucerotidae, or Family of the Hornbills. (London, 1882)
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and these little cherubs would like to remind you that books always make excellent gifts.
The Rose bud. Edited by Mrs. C.A. Soule. Boston: A. Tompkins and B.B. Mussey & Co., 1854.
Here’s the story of “Old Joseph, the Patriarch.” On Christmas Eve in the 1850s, Joseph an enslaved man, learned that he would soon be sold, leaving his wife and child behind. This image depicts his family and others trying to comfort one another offering words of wisdom. While this particular image depicts a fictional story, stories like this transpired all the time during slavery!
-Jasmine Smith, African American History Subject Specialist and Reference Librarian
This engraving is the frontispiece from Pearson, Emily Clemens. Cousin Franck’s household. Boston: Upham, Ford and Olmstead, 1853.