Snapshots of the Past

The darktown bicycle race-the start: Now for de fastest record eber known"" – Antique Print

The darktown bicycle race-the start: Now for de fastest record eber known"", [New York] : Currier & Ives, 1895. — antique lithograph
The darktown bicycle race-the start: Now for de fastest record eber known"", [New York] : Currier & Ives, 1895.. Antique lithograph from the Bicycles 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

Step back in time with The darktown bicycle race-the start: Now for de fastest record eber known"", an antique lithograph rich in period 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 fine choice for anyone who loves history, and a gift that gets noticed. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

The darktown bicycle race-the start: Now for de fastest record eber known""

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The title's exaggerated dialect, "Now for de fastest record eber known," marks this hand-colored lithograph as one of Currier & Ives's Darktown comics, a series that mocked Black Americans through demeaning stereotypes. The bicycle craze of the mid-1890s made cycling a popular subject for printmakers, and here the start of a race becomes a vehicle for ridicule rather than sport. The sheet is worth studying as evidence of how racist humor was sold to a broad white audience in the 1890s.

Created / published[New York] : Currier & Ives, 1895.
Medium1 print : lithograph, hand col.
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 scan1,536 × 1,153 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-174298

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