Tag: United States

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.

Kykunkor Souvenir Program Booklet

Courtesy of the New York Public Library/Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

A booklet from a 1934 musical drama by the Sierra Leonean composer Asadata Dafora.

Creators: Martha Drieblatt

Date of Creation: ca. 1935

Place of origin: New York, New York

Physical measurements: 31 x 23 centimeters, 16 pages

Materials: Paper

Process by which it was made: Printed by Cooper & Aronson

Current location: New York Public Library/Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Further Reading

Heard, Marcia Ethel. “Asadata Dafora: African Concert Dance Traditions in American Concert Dance.” Doctoral dissertation, New York University, 1999.  

New York Public Library. Asadata Dafora Papers Finding Aid.  <http://archives.nypl.org/scm/20812.> Accessed July 12, 2019.

Martin, John. “The Dance: A Revival, ‘Kykunkor’ is Restored to Its Original Form and Excellence – Week’s Programs.” The New York Times, January 13, X, 8, 1935.

Perpener III, John O. “Asadata Dafora,” <https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/themes-essays/african-diaspora/asadata-dafora/.>

Stiehl, Pamyla A. “The Curious Case of Kykunkor: A Dansical/Musical Exploration and Reclamation of Asadata Dafora’s Kykunkor, or the Witch Woman (1934).” Studies in Musical Theatre, 3(2):143-156, 2009.

Information contributed by Amimbola Cole Kai-Lewis.

Rebecca Rubin American Girl doll and Jacqueline Dembar Greene, “Meet Rebecca”

Rebecca Rubin doll and Meet Rebecca book, American Girl. Courtesy of American Girl.

The Rebecca doll, books, and accessories established the fictional character of a Jewish nine-year-old girl living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood in 1914.

Creators: American Girl

Date of Creation: 2009

Place of origin: Middleton, Wisconsin.

Physical measurements: Doll is eighteen inches tall; book is 6.5 x 8 inches and 86 pages.

Materials: Doll has vinyl limbs and face and stuffed soft cloth body; book has glossy pages.

Process by which it was made: Manufacture, print.

Information contributed by Rachel B. Gross.

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.

Serpent Mound

Aerial view of Serpent Mound near Peebles, Ohio, on Monday, April 2, 2012. (Photo by Timothy E. Black)

The world’s largest extant snake effigy runs for roughly a quarter-mile near what is now the southern border of Ohio.

Creators: Indigenous peoples of North America

Date of Creation: Approximately 0 – 100 CE.

Place of origin: What is now Adams County in southern Ohio in the United States of America.

Physical measurements: Approximately 1,348 feet long, 3 – 4 feet high

Materials: Rock and soil

Process by which it was made: Heaping and packing earth

Current location: Serpent Mound State Memorial, managed by the Ohio History Connection (formerly the Ohio Historical Society).

Information contributed by Chadwick Allen.

“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.

Former Site of Printer Christopher Saur’s House

Rudolf Cronau, “Bilder aus Alt-Germantown” (Pictures from old Germantown). Die Gartenlaube. Halbheft (half-issue) 20 (1899): 633

Saur (1693-1758) printed the nation’s first European-language Bible and a widely-read German newspaper.

Creators: Christoph Saur and Family, Trinity Lutheran Church.

Date of Creation: House built in 1731, torn down in 1860, site exists today

Place of origin: Germantown, Philadelphia

Materials: Stone and wood

Current location: Philadelphia

Information contributed by Bethany Wiggin.

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.

Libreta by Lydia Cabrera

Courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries

A handwritten text that contains religious information from not just the Lucumí religion, but also the Congolese Palo Monte tradition, and the Dahomean/Beninois-derived religion known as Arará.

Creators: Lydia Cabrera

Date of Creation: ca. 1950

Place of origin: USA

Physical measurements: 3 5/8” x 5 1/2,″ 100 pages.

Materials: Notebook with printed, illustrated cover.

Process by which it was made: Machine-made book with handwritten text and illustrations.

Current location: Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida. Part of the Lydia Cabrera Papers.

Information contributed by Martin Tsang.

Former Site of Printer Christoph Saur’s House

The location of the house of the first German-language publisher in the United States.

Creators: Christoph Saur and Family, Trinity Lutheran Church, et al

Date of Creation: House built in 1731, torn down in 1860, site exists today.

Place of origin: Germantown, Philadelphia

Materials: Stone and wood

Current location: Germantown, Philadelphia

Information contributed by Bethany Wiggin.