John Mcgreer (3 results)

Hardback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days.

Hardcover. Condition: Brand New. 248 pages. 11.25x8.75x1.00 inches. In Stock.

No Binding. Condition: VG. Photographic Caricatures of 19th-Century Middle Class African American Family Life Rare complete Chicago-issued series of 10 original mounted albumen photographs reproducing racist caricature drawings, iss. 10 original albumen photograph prints, on original card mounts. Verso of each card with printed name: "McGreer, Chicago." Card edges a bit rubbed. Slight toning and abrasion to first photograph of series. Otherwise the photographic images generally very nice, with very good contrast. Photographic Caricatures of 19th-Century Middle Class African American Family Life Rare complete Chicago-issued series of 10 original mounted albumen photographs reproducing racist caricature drawings, issued in 1881 by John McGreer for the Cartoon Painting Co. Each photograph on card mount (approx. 4 1/8 x 6 1/2 inches). The set sequentially narrates the satirized courtship, marriage, and family life of the so-called Blackville Twins, with the imagery presenting African Americans through exaggerated stereotypes typical of late 19th-century popular culture. Several of the illustrations are self-styled as "reproduced from sketch by Sol Eytinge" or "remodeled from sketch in Harper's weekly" references to Sol Eytinge s well-known 1878 Harper s Weekly Blackville Twins series. The Library Company of Philadelphia describes the present series as photographic reproductions by the Cartoon Printing Co. (though the firm is clearly identified in the captions as the Cartoon Painting Co.). Notably the set held at the Library Company is lacking one of the most important photographs in the series (No. 7: The Wedding Feast). Library Company of Philadelphia The complete sequence comprises: No. 1 The Flirtation; No. 2 The Introduction; No. 3 The Courting; No. 4 The Proposal; No. 5 The Duel; No. 6 The Wedding; No. 7 The Wedding Feast; No. 8 Return from the Honeymoon Tour; No. 9 Coming Events; No. 10 The Event (or where 2 pair is better than 4 of a kind ). These photographs, marketed as curiosities to McGreer's middle class clientele, stand as evidence of post-Civil popular depictions of African Americans. The images reveal how, in the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction decades, mainstream illustrated humor could weaponize domestic respectability, marriage, fashion, and professional life as sites of ridicule when applied to Black subjects. The series mock-ethnographic tone and comic staging expose the anxieties and prejudices of white audiences at a moment when African American civic presence and a growing Black middle class were increasingly visible. Even given their overall degrading flavor, McGreer s scenes are visually reliant on the allure of Black sartorial refinement: several male figures appear in exquisite, dandy-inflected dress, anticipating the larger historical arc highlighted in the Met s recent exhibition Superfine: Tailoring Black Style (2025), which traces three centuries of Black self-fashioning through dandyism as identity, presence, and cultural power. In McGreer s hands, that same visual language is weaponized - turning elegance into mockery - yet the very need to caricature Black style underscores how conspicuous Black refinement had become in the post-Civil War public imagination, even as the emergent African American middle class sought dignity and modernity in exactly these registers of dress and deportment. In this sense, McGreer s photographs of racist "cartoon paintings" sit in the same visual arena that later saw African Americans and their allies marshal photography as evidence of dignity and modern identity - an impulse epitomized by W. E. B. Du Bois s carefully curated middle-class portraits for the 1900 Paris Exposition, analyzed by Shawn Michelle Smith in the book: Photography on the Color Li. Map.