The Massachusetts centinel – 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
Few images capture their era like this historic print of The Massachusetts centinel. An authentic image from the Library of Congress, it carries the weight of the real historical record.
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The Massachusetts centinel
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Its woodcut is a personified figure of Justice, the emblem the record names as its subject, set atop a Boston weekly. It appeared in number 16 of volume VII of *The Massachusetts Centinel*, dated Saturday, May 12, 1787. Printers of the period often used emblematic mastheads like this one to lend a paper dignity and to signal the moral seriousness of its contents. The date places the sheet in the months after Shays' Rebellion, when questions of debt, order, and the rule of law were pressing on Massachusetts readers.
| Created / published | 1787 May 12. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : woodcut. |
| Genre | Periodical illustrations 1780-1790.Woodcuts 1780-1790. |
| Notes | Title from item. Illus. in: The Massachusetts Centinel, number 16, of vol. VII, 1787 Saturday May 12, masthead. Published in: The American Revolution in drawings and prints; a checklist of 1765-1790 graphics in the Library of Congress / Compiled by Donald H. Cresswell, with a foreword by Sinclair H. Hitchings. Washington : [For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off.], 1975, no. 892. |
| Subjects | Justice--1780-1790. Newspapers--Massachusetts--Boston--1780-1790. United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,536 × 328 px · prints to 5 × 1 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-122744 |
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