Going for a shine: he kin knock de stuffin outen a mule!"" – Vintage Wall Art
(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
Step back in time with Going for a shine: he kin knock de stuffin outen a mule!"", an antique lithograph rich in period detail. An authentic image from the Library of Congress, it carries the weight of the real historical record.
The framed print arrives ready to hang; the unframed option suits custom framing. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Going for a shine: he kin knock de stuffin outen a mule!""
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The caption sets this lithograph apart. In exaggerated dialect, it has a figure boasting that he can knock the stuffing out of a mule, a joke built on the idea that its Black subject was foolish and brutish. Currier & Ives published it in New York around 1888 as part of its Darktown series, cartoons that caricatured African Americans for a mostly white middle-class market. Such prints were cheap and widely sold, and they drew on minstrel-show stereotypes that dated to the antebellum period. Today they are read as evidence of the racism of the Jim Crow era and of how popular imagery reinforced racial hierarchy.
| Created / published | New York : Published by Currier & Ives, c1888. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : lithograph. |
| Genre | c1983 |
| Notes | Caricature issued as part of the Darktown comics" series. Currier & Ives : a catalogue raisonné / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,144 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-174571 |
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