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File:1829-philadelphia-black-bourgeoisie-flesh-coloured.jpg

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Edward Williams Clay: "Life in Philadelphia"   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Artist
Edward Williams Clay  (–1857)  wikidata:Q15532610
 
Alternative names
Edward W. Clay
Description American cartoonist
Date of birth/death 17 April 1799 / 1792 Edit this at Wikidata 31 December 1857 / 1857 Edit this at Wikidata
Location of birth Philadelphia
Authority file
artist QS:P170,Q15532610

Published by W. Simpson
Title
"Life in Philadelphia"
Date Published May 1829.
Medium color etching print
Inscriptions
  • Dialogue in image:
Fashionably-attired African-American woman
"Have you any flesh-coloured silk stockings, young man?"
French shop-attendant (who knows exactly what to do to please the customer)
"Oui, Madame! Here is von pair of de first qualité."

[Meaning: "Yes ma'am, here is a pair which is of the highest quality."]

Monogram bottom right:

C
artist or engraver
Notes

A caricature showing an African-American woman shopping while dressed in the very latest of high fashions; her similarly-attired friend waits in the doorway for her to finish her purchase. As caricaturists often did, the size of the woman's hat is exaggerated, and the skirts are shown a little shorter than they would have been in real life (see Image:Waist-and-Extravagance-ca-1830-fashion-satire-Heath.jpg for another typical example of these standard caricaturists' tricks from the same period).

Much of the humor which white Americans of 1829 would have perceived in this caricature would have arisen from the racist preconceptions which they held. Many white Americans would have found the very idea of a "black bourgeoisie" (as it was later called), or Black attempts to imitate White high-society, to be inherently ridiculous.
Source/Photographer

Edited from the image http://memory.loc.gov/master/pnp/cph/3g00000/3g02000/3g02400/3g02441u.tif at the Library of Congress website

CALL NUMBER: PGA - Clay, Edward W.--Life in Philadelphia (A size) [P&P]
REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZC4-2441 (color film copy transparency)
LC-USZ62-119316 (b&w film copy neg.)
REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
DIGITAL ID: (color film copy transparency) cph 3g02441
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g02441
(b&w film copy neg.) cph 3c19316
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c19316

CARD #: 93503166

Licensing edit

This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
Public domain

This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.
The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain".
This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details.

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current14:16, 24 July 2006Thumbnail for version as of 14:16, 24 July 2006897 × 1,042 (445 KB)Churchh (talk | contribs)"Life in Philadelphia", a May 1829 caricature showing an African-American woman shopping while dressed in the very latest of high fashions; her similarly-attired friend waits in the doorway for her to finish her purchase. As caricaturists often did, the

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