Today’s #FloralFriday feature is from an album documenting the life of Amy Matilda Cassey, an African American activist in antebellum Philadelphia. Cassey, who was active in the Philadelphia Female Antislavery Society, local black literary and debating societies, and other reform movements, collected poetry, essays, sketches and floral watercolors between 1833 and 1856.

This piece, circa 1834, is by Margaretta Forten, an African American suffragist and abolitionist. Forten, a member of the interracial Pennsylvania Female Anti-Slavery Society, was the daughter of Philadelphia entrepreneur and activist James Forten. 

See the complete digitized album here.

Forten, Margaretta, artist. “Long long be thy heart with your memory fill’d…” [graphic] / Margaretta ca. 1834 1 drawing: watercolor and goache; overall 24 x 19 cm. (9.5 x 7.25 in.)

This large chromolithograph, titled “Heroes of the Colored Race”, was printed in 1881 by Joseph Hoover of Philadelphia to commemorate men prominent in and representative of the advancement of African American civil rights. Ex-Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce of Mississippi, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and ex-Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi are featured central, with corner portraits of African American legislators John R. Lynch of Mississippi, Joseph H. Rainey of Massachusetts, Roberts Smalls of South Carolina, and Charles E. Nash of Louisiana. Portraits of John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, William T. Sherman, and Ulysses S. Grant are also featured. The image also presents four scenes representing important phases in pre- and post-Civil War African American life, from slavery to education. 

Heroes of the colored race [graphic]. Philadelphia: Published by J. Hoover, 628 Arch St. c1881 1 print: chromolithograph, hand-colored; 56 x 77 cm.(22 x 30.5 in.)