Historical Image of the Day

Back to a place where I have time to do the images again.

This week's set will be on American religion.

Methodist camp meeting, 1839

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I'm reading Sean Wilentz's classic Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 as I revamp my U.S. Urban History course for the spring semester. So this week's images will consist of New York City and its residents in the 19th century. Plus I'm spending the holidays in New York and surrounding environs, so it works that way too.

Broadway & Canal Streets, New York City, 1834

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Runaway slave notice for Harriet Jacobs. Probably between 1835 and 1842, which were the years where Jacobs' lived in an attic in order to escape her master.

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Proceedings of the First United States Antimasonic Convention, 1830.

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The Slave's Friend, an abolitionist children's book, 1836

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Anti-abolitionist handbill, 1837

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"Fort Pierre and the Adjacent Prairie," Karl Bodmer, 1832-34

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Death mask of Aaron Burr, 1836

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Sperm whaling scene painted by unknown artist of the 1830s.

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Notice for all gamblers to leave Vicksburg, Mississippi or face the consequences, 1835. In fact, several gamblers were killed when they did not follow this advice.

This is from Joshua Rothman's excellent article "The Hazards of the Flush Times: Gambling, Mob Violence, and the Anxieties of America's Market Revolution" which you can read in the latest issue of The Journal of American History

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The transcendentalist community of New Harmony, Indiana, 1832-33

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Pennsylvania Hall Fire, 1838. This building was burned by a mob for having women and African-Americans speaking advocating for women's suffrage and abolitionism.

It also should be noted that this is an excellent example of the deep-seated hostility in the North to equal rights, especially for African-Americans, and that the history of northern racism is as long and painful as that in the South. But it doesn't get the same publicity.

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"Shopkeeper and Tailor, Paramaibo, Suriname, 1839"

This contributes to the blog's new commitment to coverage of all things Suriname.

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Image from hermaphrodite James Carey's postmortem examination, Philadelphia, 1838.

Maybe this should have been the Halloween picture

From Elizabeth Reis, "Impossible Hermaphrodites: Intersex in America, 1620-1960," Journal of American History, September 2005

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Images from Panic of 1837