The Great fire at Chicago. Scene in Wells Street - the terrified populace in front of the Briggs House, which has just caught fire / from a sketch by our special artist. – 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
A window into the past: The Great fire at Chicago. Scene in Wells Street - the terrified populace in front of the Briggs House, which has just caught fire / from a sketch by our special artist., preserved in this antique engraving. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
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The Great fire at Chicago. Scene in Wells Street - the terrified populace in front of the Briggs House, which has just caught fire / from a sketch by our special artist.
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The particular scene here is Wells Street in Chicago, where a crowd stands in the street before the Briggs House as the hotel catches fire. The engraving was made from a sketch by a special artist sent to report on the blaze that destroyed much of the city in October 1871. It ran in Harper's Weekly on October 28 of that year, and the image was meant to convey the panic of residents fleeing the flames. Wood engravings like this one were the main way newspapers and magazines showed readers distant disasters before photographs could be reproduced in print, so the crowd's faces and movement are worth studying as a record of how the event was seen at the time.
| Created / published | 1871 |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : wood engraving. |
| Genre | Periodical illustrations 1870-1880.Wood engravings 1870-1880. |
| Notes | Illus. in: Harper's weekly, 1871 Oct. 28, p. 97. |
| Subjects | Great Fire, Chicago, Ill., 1871. Fires--Illinois--Chicago--1870-1880. Disasters--Illinois--Chicago--1870-1880. Crowds--Illinois--Chicago--1870-1880. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 3,312 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-186012 |
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