Bell's Soapona did it--Who's yo' fadder" / Van." – Antique Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
This rare vintage poster captures Bell's Soapona did it--Who's yo' fadder" / Van." in remarkable detail. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.
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Bell's Soapona did it--Who's yo' fadder" / Van."
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The title sets up the joke: a dialect question, "Who's yo' fadder," answered with "Van," and the claim that Bell's Soapona did it. Printed around 1889 by the Rochester Lithographing & Printing Co., this color lithograph belongs to the flood of trade advertising that manufacturers used to sell household goods in the late 1800s. Its subject is Black children, drawn in the exaggerated, stereotyped manner common in commercial art of the period, which makes it useful today as evidence of how racist caricature was used to sell products.
| Created / published | c1889. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print (poster) : lithograph, color. |
| Genre | Advertisements American 1880-1890.Lithographs Color 1880-1890. |
| Notes | Copyright by the Rochester Lithographing & Printing Co. |
| Subjects | African Americans--Children--1880-1890. Children & toys--1880-1890. Soaps--1880-1890. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,103 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-172684 |
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