In Washington City--1839 – Historic 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
A window into the past: In Washington City--1839, preserved in this historic drawing. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
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In Washington City--1839
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Titled simply "In Washington City" and dated 1839, this drawing captures street vending in the capital when it was still more town than metropolis. Food sellers working from carts and wagons were a familiar sight on its unpaved streets, where laborers, boarders, and government clerks could buy a quick meal from the curb. In the late 1830s, Washington was a city of wide planned avenues set among open fields and half-finished buildings, so a scene like this shows the everyday commerce that filled the spaces between its official monuments. Genre drawings of ordinary urban life such as this one are valuable for what they reveal about daily routines that written records rarely describe.
| Created / published | 1839 |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 drawing. |
| Genre | Drawings American 1830-1840. |
| Subjects | Food vendors--1830-1840. Carts & wagons--1830-1840.United States--District of Columbia--Washington (D.C.) |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 5,085 × 4,095 px · prints to 17 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-215892 |
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