Tag: 19th century

Comic Valentine, sent from Charles Colton to James Butler

Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

Featuring hand-colored woodcut and lithograph caricatures of familiar social types, from raunchy spinsters to clumsy bachelors, mid-nineteenth century comic valentines encouraged buyers to observe the holiday through mischief.

Creators: Turner & Fisher Valentine Publishers (printer), Charles Colton (author)

Date of Creation: Dated February 12, 1847 (f1 r.); Written Feb. 20 (f1 v.); Sent Feb. 25 (f2 v.).

Place of origin: Printed in New York City; Sent from Charlestown, MA, to Enosburgh Falls, VT

Physical measurements: 2 leaves

Materials: Lettersheet, ink, watercolor paint, trace of wax seal

Process by which it was made: Handwritten letter; illustration made via wood-engraving, hand-colored with a stencil

Current location: American Antiquarian Society

converted PNM file

Information contributed by Don James McLaughlin.

“Memoria de las cosas más notables que acaecieron en Bexar el año de 13 mandando el Tirano Arredondo, 1813″

Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

A manuscript of a testimonial describing the events of a Spanish massacre in Texas in 1813.

Creators: Anonymous

Date of Creation: 1813

Place of origin: San Antonio, Texas

Physical measurements: 12 pages. 12” x 8.25”

Materials: Paper and ink

Process by which it was made: Handwritten

Current location: Herbert Bolton Papers, Carton 45, Folder 22, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

Information contributed by Raúl Coronado.

Sheet music for “Ipo Lei Manu” and “Pua Melekule”

Sheet music for “Ipo Lei Manu,” printed by Wall, Nichols Co., Honolulu, H.I. (1892). Courtesy of Amy Kuʻuleialoha Stillman.

Two songs from a sheet music folio published in Honolulu in 1892.

Creators: Printed by Wall, Nichols Co., Honolulu, H.I. No composer/s credited.

Date of Creation: 1892.

Place of origin: Honolulu

Physical measurements: 11” wide x 14” high; 6 pages (back is blank)

Materials: Paper

Process by which it was made: Print

Current location: Private collection.

Further Reading

James Revell Carr. Hawaiian Music in Motion: Mariners, Missionaries and Minstrels. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014.

Tiffany Lani Ing. Reclaiming Kalākaua: Nineteenth-Century Perspectives on a Hawaiian Sovereign. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2019. 

Stacey Kamehiro. The Arts of Kingship: Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalākaua Era. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2009.

Noenoe Silva. Aloha Betrayed: Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.

Information contributed by Amy Kuʻuleialoha Stillman.

“Who Are the Indians?”

“Who Are the Indians,” from the Juvenile Instructor 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1, 1866), pg. 1.

An 1866 article about Native Americans published for the youth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Creators: Anonymous author (likely George Q. Cannon) and anonymous illustrator.

Date of Creation: 1866

Place of origin: Salt Lake City, Utah Territory

Physical measurements: 26cm., 4 pages

Materials: Ink on paper

Process by which it was made: Typeset and engraved

Current location: Multiple libraries house copies.

Further Reading

Farmer, Jared. On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape. Harvard

University Press, 2009.

Mauss, Armand L. All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and

Lineage. University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Rees, Nathan. Mormon Visual Culture and the American West. Routledge, 2021.

Reeve, W. Paul. Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Information contributed by Nathan Rees.

Compendio de la Historia de los Estados Unidos

Photograph by Jessica Linker.

Georg Sünder’s personal copy of a Spanish-language translation of Emma Willard’s History of the United States.

Creators: Emma Willard, Miguel Terube Tolón.

Date of Creation: 1852

Place of origin: New York City

Physical measurements: 400 pages

Materials: Blue cloth-covered boards with gilt-stamped flag, leather spine.

Process by which it was made: Print, hand-written annotations.

Current location: Owned by Jessica Linker.

Further Reading

Homestead, Melissa J. “‘When I Can Read My Title Clear’: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Stowe v. Thomas Copyright Infringement Case.” Prospects 27 (October 2002): 201–45. 

Kanellos, Nicolás, and Helvetia Martell. Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, Origins to 1960: A Brief History and Comprehensive Bibliography. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press, 2000.

Kelley, Mary. Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America’s Republic. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.

Lazo, Rodrigo. Writing to Cuba: Filibustering and Cuban Exiles in the United States. Envisioning Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

Information contributed by Jessica Linker.

Proud Raven (“Lincoln”) Pole

Courtesy of the US Forest Service, Ketchikan Ranger District

Erected in the early 1880s by a Tlingit leader, barely a decade after the United States had claimed Alaska from Russia, this pole became popular with white Alaskans who read it as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln.

Creators: Original pole carved by Thleda (Nisgaʼa) for a patron from the Gaanax.ádi Raven clan of the Taantʼa kwáan (or “Tongass”) Tlingit; replica carved for the Saxman Totem Park by Charles Staastʼ Brown (Saanya kwáan Neix.ádi)

Date of Creation: Original c. 1882; replica June 1940

Place of origin: Kadukguká, Tlingit village on Tongass Island, Alaska

Physical measurements: Approx. 40ʼ high

Materials: Red cedar, paint

Process by which it was made: Carving, painting

Current location: Replica of entire pole in the Saxman Totem Park, Saxman, Alaska; original “Lincoln” finial in the Alaska State Museum, Juneau, Alaska

Information contributed by Emily Moore.