Collections : [University of Michigan William L. Clements Library]

This nineteenth-century album contains 46 once-bound pen-and-ink caricatures on heavy card stock, each card with or formerly with metal eyelets on one short edge. A pencil inscription at the back of the volume reads, "Mr. Albert L. Briggs, Providence, RI," and internal references to Providence, Rhode Island, further suggests that either Briggs or another local resident may have produced the artwork. The figures represented in the volume vary widely and some are more sympathetic or more disparaging than others. The illustrator relied heavily on exaggerated features, stereotypes, and jokes directed at people's physical appearance to provide social commentary especially on race, ethnicity, gender, and class.

This nineteenth-century album contains 46 once-bound pen-and-ink caricatures on heavy card stock, each card with or formerly with metal eyelets on one short edge. A pencil inscription at the back of the volume reads, "Mr. Albert L. Briggs, Providence, RI," and internal references to Providence, Rhode Island, further suggests that either Briggs or another local resident may have produced the artwork. The figures represented in the volume vary widely and some are more sympathetic or more disparaging than others. The illustrator relied heavily on exaggerated features, stereotypes, and jokes directed at people's physical appearance to provide especially social commentary on race, ethnicity, gender, and class.

At least seven of the illustrations relate to women, including drawings referring to women's rights and various women's roles as mothers, performers, physicians, and cooks. One, labelled "What is home without a mother," may be a reference to a song by the same name published in 1854, and it features a woman with a monstrous face. Another titled "HANNAH LONG" depicts a woman peddling "Quaker Bitters" (probably the Providence, Rhode Island, patent medicine by that name) and may be referring to Hannah Longshore (1819-1901), who graduated from the first class of the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1851.

Many of the caricatures focus on impoverished or working class people, showing individuals in tattered clothing or in lower-paying professions such as a farmer, a shoeshine, and a seeming gravedigger. A number of illustrations depict men in various stages of intoxication or alcoholism. Forms of social disorder are highlighted in caricatures of a convict and of a knife-wielding murderer labelled "THE MAN THAT KILLED JOHN GILPIN." Commentary on physical and mental disability are also represented, in drawings of a mentally ill man labelled "Luny" and a man with unaligned eyes and feet labelled "On exhibition."

Other caricatures reflect racial, ethnic, and religious stereotypes. Two racist caricatures depict African Americans, including one of a Black Congressman and one of an Uncle Remus character. Another caricature depicts a recent immigrant, while two are anti-Semitic (those labeled "The Torturer" and "NAME IT"). Two figures depict high religious figures, from Catholic or Orthodox Christian churches; one wears a robe, a fur-brimmed mitre, and snowshoes. The word "KAMSCHASA" is written near the bottom of the robe, likely referring to the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia.

Other caricatures highlight people based on their height, weight, profession (such as a king, a knight, an editor, a lecturer), or social posturing. For example, attitudes like dignity, contentment, nosiness, and bashfulness are spotlighted. Others appear more innocuous, such as illustrations of someone reading the morning newspaper and another of someone taking "Rush's Pills," but underlying subtexts for many of the images likely have additional meaning.

Rd. Kraker created this 20-page handwritten booklet titled "Little Girl's Own Book," with an introduction dated April 1, 1864. The manuscript was "Brilliantly Illustrated by Darling" and identified as a first edition in the "1st Series of Confederate Primers," "printed" by the "Southern Emesis Book and job Printing Office." The booklet contains a story, with added notes on proper behavior. According to Kraker's introduction, the content was gleaned from conversations in the "Lager Bier Saloon of Hanns Kroftler" and its earnestness and sentiment was adapted to the "comprehension and bias of mind of the female children of the south." The author told the story of a Northern and a Southern girl, in which the girl in the north became tired of living on a farm and eating onions, so decided to travel to the warmer climate of the south and visit her friend. Upon arriving by train, she witnessed a battle and fell in love with a Confederate soldier. After he returned to the battlefield, she gained solace from her southern friend, through listening to music, by singing and writing, and by seeking treatment for sadness from a physician.

Rd. Kraker created this 20-page handwritten booklet titled "Little Girl's Own Book," with an introduction dated April 1, 1864. The manuscript was "Brilliantly Illustrated by Darling" and identified as a first edition in the "1st Series of Confederate Primers," "printed" by the "Southern Emesis Book and job Printing Office." The booklet contains a story, with added notes on proper behavior. According to Kraker's introduction, the content was gleaned from conversations in the "Lager Bier Saloon of Hanns Kroftler" and its earnestness and sentiment was adapted to the "comprehension and bias of mind of the female children of the south."

The author told the story of a Northern and a Southern girl, in which the girl in the north became tired of living on a farm and eating onions, so decided to travel to the warmer climate of the south and visit her friend. Upon arriving by train, she witnessed a battle and fell in love with a Confederate soldier. After he returned to the battlefield, she gained solace from her southern friend, through listening to music, by singing and writing, and by seeking treatment for sadness from a physician. One of the songs referenced is Charles Carroll Sawyer and Henry Tucker's "When Will This Cruel War Be Over?"

• A moving train, "ye adventurus maid going to the Sunny South."
• A battle scene, with firing cannon, and a freestanding chimney beside two men (one laying on the ground, the other standing), "Findeth ye home desolate."
• Boxes and barrels of goods, "Tobacco &c Tar & Turpentine" and "Pine Trees" beside a jug marked "apple jack."
• Barrels, with a pitcher and glass atop one of them marked "Buorbon" [i.e. Bourbon], "ye Stapels continued."
• A woman in a rocking chair weeping into a handkerchief while a man in a soldier's uniform walks away.
• A piano.
• Four people walking; the two in front are a man and a woman.
• A woman standing, holding what appears to be a fan.
• A farmhouse beside a fence, animals, a birdhouse, and a tree with gourds hanging from its branches (as homes for Martins).
• A woman seated, knitting.
• A woman playing the piano; another woman stands beside her with a hand on her shoulder. They are singing, "When this Cruel war is over-!"
• Vision of injured soldiers, one leg amputee standing with crutches.
• A woman seated and writing a letter.
• A physician seated at a tent opening, reading a letter.

The text includes a parody of physician's explanation and prescription to the disconsolate young woman. The instructions read:

"The exostotic exudation overcoming the endosmotic implication in the peri and endocardium, pluviates the sanguinious, and decalorificates the systemic platitudes. The circumambient exoteric disintegrates the envelope and allows the exoteric functions to retrospect the perihelion of animal deficiancies. The pia mater interconvoluted with the [?] covering and becomes simultaneously congested by contact with the [?] substance. Hence retrovision becomes duplicated and prevision imparalelized. The remedy is equally perspicuous and followed earnestly will inevitably effect a cure..."

The volume includes several lines and paragraphs written in German Kurrantschrift. The most robust is the final page, headed by the text "The Soldier's Lament" and "Der Betrübte-lammantiert Soldadt," followed by a poetic description of snow-capped mountains and remarks on girls' behavior, i.e. "Wie schön wäre es [wenn?] die kleine Mädchen immer die Wahrheit sprächen" (How nice would it be [if?] little girls always spoke the truth), etc.