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African American Odyssey

EMANCIPATION.

CREATED/PUBLISHED
1865.

SUMMARY
Thomas Nast's celebration of the emancipation of Southern slaves with the end of the Civil War. Nast envisions a somewhat optimistic picture of the future of free blacks in the United States. The central scene shows the interior of a freedman's home with the family gathered around a "Union" wood stove. The father bounces his small child on his knee while his wife and others look on. On the wall near the mantel hang a picture of Abraham Lincoln and a banjo. Below this scene is an oval portrait of Lincoln and above it, Thomas Crawford's statue of "Freedom." On either side of the central picture are scenes contrasting black life in the South under the Confederacy (left) with visions of the freedman's life after the war (right). At top left fugitive slaves are hunted down in a coastal swamp. Below, a black man is sold, apart from his wife and children, on a public auction block. At bottom a black woman is flogged and a male slave branded. Above, two hags, one holding the three-headed hellhound Cerberus, preside over these scenes, and flee from the gleaming apparition of Freedom. In contrast, on the right, a woman with an olive branch and scales of justice stands triumphant. Here, a freedman's cottage can be seen in a peaceful landscape. Below, a black mother sends her children off to "Public School." At bottom a free Negro receives his pay from a cashier. Two smaller scenes flank Lincoln's portrait. In one a mounted overseer flogs a black field slave (left); in the other a foreman politely greets Negro cotton-field workers.

NOTES
Signed: Th[omas] Nast.

King & Baird, Printers, 607 Sansom Street, Philadelphia.

Published by S. Bott, No. 43 South Third Street, Philadelphia, Penna.

Entered . . . 1865, by J.W. Umpehent . . . Pennsylvania.

Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1865-3.

SUBJECTS
African Americans (portrayed), emancipated--Freedom (personified)--Labor and trades, portrayed--Lincoln, Abraham, presidency--Slaves and slavery--Schools, for African Americans
Wood engravings.

RELATED NAMES
Bott, S.
Umpehent, J. W.
Nast, Thomas.
King & Baird.

MEDIUM
1 print : Wood engraving printed in black and rose on wove paper ; 36 x 52.1 cm (image)

CALL NUMBER
PGA - King & Baird--Emancipation (C size)

REPRODUCTION NUMBER
LC-USZ62-2573 DLC (b&w film copy neg.)

PART OF
African American Odyssey

REPOSITORY
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

DIGITAL ID
(b&w film copy neg.) app 3a06245

RELATED DIGITAL ITEMS
(Celebration of Emancipation)

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