The Grosvenor balloon vs. the Reed ladder – Historic Reproduction
(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 historic drawing captures The Grosvenor balloon vs. the Reed ladder in remarkable detail. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.
Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. Perfect for a home, office, library or classroom wall, and a gift with a story behind it. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
The Grosvenor balloon vs. the Reed ladder
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The pairing of a balloon and a ladder sets this drawing apart from the board's other ballooning pictures, casting two Republican figures of the 1890s as rivals in a contest of height and ambition. The title links the balloon to Charles Grosvenor, an Ohio congressman, and the ladder to Thomas Reed, the Speaker of the House. The drawing ran in the Washington Post on May 4, 1896, when newspaper cartoonists often used such props to comment on congressional politics. The catalog record is preliminary, so the specific occasion behind the joke is worth checking against contemporary reporting.
| Created / published | 1896 May 4. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 drawing. |
| Genre | Cartoons (Commentary) American.Drawings. |
| Notes | No accession number. Published in: Washington post. This catalog record contains preliminary or unverified data from a project done in BRS software, ca. 1985. mm / 860224. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 3,268 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-197498 |
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