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Darktown fire brigade. The chief, on duty: Lite up dem hose dar-yous heah me!"" – Vintage Wall Art

Darktown fire brigade. The chief, on duty: Lite up dem hose dar-yous heah me!"", [New York] : Currier & Ives, 1885. — antique lithograph
Darktown fire brigade. The chief, on duty: Lite up dem hose dar-yous heah me!"", [New York] : Currier & Ives, 1885.. Antique lithograph from the Historic Print Archive collection.

(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 antique lithograph captures Darktown fire brigade. The chief, on duty: Lite up dem hose dar-yous heah me!"" in remarkable detail. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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.

Darktown fire brigade. The chief, on duty: Lite up dem hose dar-yous heah me!""

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A fire chief barking an order in exaggerated dialect anchors this 1885 Currier & Ives lithograph, whose caption, "Lite up dem hose," is meant to be read as a joke. The print belongs to the firm's Darktown series, a run of caricatures that portrayed Black urban life as chaotic and foolish, drawing on the blackface minstrel stage then popular with white audiences. Such prints were sold widely and helped shape racist stereotypes for decades. Today they are studied as evidence of how that humor was produced and circulated, and they are hard to look at without seeing the harm in them.

Created / published[New York] : Currier & Ives, 1885.
Medium1 print : lithograph.
Genrec1983
NotesCaricature issued as part of the Darktown comics" series. Currier & Ives : a catalogue raisonné / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,112 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-174313

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