1867 Margaret Garner "Modern Medea" — LoC, Inspired Beloved — May 18
$75.75
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🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · May 18, 1867
Complete Issue · New York
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One of the most historically significant issues in the entire Harper's Weekly run — the full-page illustration "The Modern Medea: The Story of Margaret Garner," held by the Library of Congress, the Brooklyn Museum, and the NYPL Schomburg Center, depicting the fugitive slave whose story inspired Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved. Combined with Charleston saluting the Union flag and a newsboy lodging house centerfold, this is a primary document of Black American history at its most profound.
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✊ "THE MODERN MEDEA" — MARGARET GARNER
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📰 FULL PAGE — "THE MODERN MEDEA — THE STORY OF MARGARET GARNER" — AFTER A PAINTING BY THOMAS SATTERWHITE NOBLE — WITH ARTICLE
The most historically significant illustration in this issue and one of the most important pieces of Black American history in the entire Harper's Weekly run — a full-page wood engraving after the painting by Thomas Satterwhite Noble, photographed by Mathew Brady, held in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress (Call Number: Illus. in AP2.H32 1867, LC-DIG-ds-14485), the Brooklyn Museum, and the NYPL Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Margaret Garner was an enslaved woman from Kentucky who in January 1856 escaped across the frozen Ohio River to Cincinnati with her husband, four children, and other family members. When U.S. Marshals and slave catchers arrived to recapture them under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Garner seized a butcher knife and killed her two-year-old daughter Mary, and wounded her other three children, rather than allow them to be returned to slavery. She said she would have killed herself and all four children had she not been overpowered. Her trial became a national cause célèbre and one of the most dramatic confrontations over the Fugitive Slave Act.
Noble's 1867 painting — depicting the moment of capture, with Garner standing over her children — became one of the most powerful anti-slavery images in American art. The Harper's Weekly article accompanying this illustration wrote that Garner had shown "a far nobler jealousy than that which actuated the mythical Medea." The painting is now on permanent display at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, gifted by Procter & Gamble.
Margaret Garner's story directly inspired Toni Morrison to write Beloved (1987), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the American Book Award, and is widely considered one of the greatest American novels. Morrison also wrote the libretto for the opera Margaret Garner (2005), with music by Richard Danielpour. This Harper's Weekly illustration — the primary published document of Noble's painting — is held by the Library of Congress, Brooklyn Museum, and NYPL Schomburg Center. An original print in a complete original issue — not a reproduction — of a work that inspired a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. An essential piece for any collection of Black American history, women's history, and anti-slavery history.
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🇺🇸 CHARLESTON SALUTES THE UNION FLAG
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🎺 HALF PAGE — "THE CHARLESTON FIREMEN SALUTING THE OLD FLAG"
A half-page illustration of Charleston, South Carolina firemen saluting the Union flag — a significant and complex piece of Reconstruction-era reconciliation symbolism, as the city where the Civil War began adjusted to the new order. A significant piece of Charleston and Reconstruction history.
🪦 HALF PAGE — "UNION PRISONERS' CEMETERY AT CHARLESTON, S.C."
A half-page illustration of the Union prisoners' cemetery at Charleston — where Union soldiers who died in Confederate captivity were buried, a significant piece of Civil War commemoration and memory.
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📰 DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD
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📰 DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD — "THE NEWSBOYS' LODGING-HOUSE, NEW YORK" — TEN SCENES
A double-page centerfold of ten scenes documenting the Newsboys' Lodging House in New York — the celebrated institution founded by Charles Loring Brace and the Children's Aid Society to provide shelter, education, and meals to the thousands of homeless newsboys who worked the streets of New York City. A significant piece of New York City social history and the history of child welfare reform.
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📋 CONDITION
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I photograph every page of every issue so you can inspect the condition closely before purchasing. Please review all images carefully and don't hesitate to ask any questions — I'm happy to provide additional detail or close-up shots of any page, illustration, or area of concern before you buy.
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📌 DETAILS
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Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ··············· May 18, 1867
City ··············· New York
Format ············· Illustrated newspaper, complete in 16 pages
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📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
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• Stored in an acid-free protective bag and flat-shipped in a padded envelope with heavy cardboard reinforcement
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind
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🔍 SEO TAGS
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1867 Margaret Garner "Modern Medea" — LoC, Inspired Beloved — May 18
$75.75