1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14

1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14

$39.93
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1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
  • 1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14
1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14

1867 St. Thomas US Purchase, Buffalo Shot from Train, Dickens Farewell — Dec 14

$39.93
🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · December 14, 1867 Complete Issue · New York ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ A historically varied and significant issue — a view of St. Thomas just weeks after the U.S. agreed to purchase it from Denmark; buffalo being shot from Kansas Pacific Railroad trains; a farewell to Charles Dickens; Plymouth Rock; Pennsylvania coal mining; and New York's Rondout coal depot. Strong content for collectors of American territorial expansion history, Western frontier history, and Victorian literary history. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌴 ST. THOMAS — U.S. PURCHASE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🏝️ HALF DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD — "VIEW OF ST. THOMAS, WEST INDIES, LATELY PURCHASED BY THE UNITED STATES" A significant illustration of St. Thomas — published just seven weeks after Secretary of State William Seward signed a treaty with Denmark on October 24, 1867, in which the United States agreed to purchase St. Thomas and St. John for $7,500,000 in gold. On November 27, 1867, just two weeks before this issue went to press, the King of Denmark issued a royal proclamation informing the islanders that the sale had been approved by the Danish parliament — and the islanders themselves had voted 1,244 to 22 in favor of joining the United States. The purchase was in the same expansionist spirit as Seward's Alaska purchase just months earlier in 1867. Both deals were Seward's vision of American maritime strategic power in the Pacific and the Caribbean. However, the U.S. Senate — furious at Seward over his support of President Andrew Johnson during the impeachment proceedings — ultimately rejected the St. Thomas treaty in 1870. St. Thomas would not become American territory until March 31, 1917, when the U.S. finally purchased the Danish West Indies for $25 million in gold. This illustration, published at the exact moment of greatest anticipation about American sovereignty over St. Thomas, is a rare and significant piece of American territorial expansion history and Caribbean history. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🦬 BUFFALO SHOT FROM TRAINS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🦬 TWO-FIFTHS PAGE — "SHOOTING BUFFALO FROM THE TRAINS OF THE KANSAS PACIFIC RAILROAD" A vivid and historically significant illustration of passengers shooting bison from the windows of Kansas Pacific Railroad trains — one of the most striking and consequential images of the systematic destruction of the American bison herds. The Kansas Pacific, pushing westward through the prime buffalo range of the southern Plains, actively promoted buffalo hunting from its trains as entertainment for passengers — and the resulting slaughter contributed enormously to the catastrophic collapse of the southern bison herd that would be functionally extinct within a decade. Published at the height of the buffalo's commercial slaughter, this is a primary document of one of the most significant environmental disasters in American history. A significant piece of Western Americana, railroad history, and American natural history. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 FAREWELL TO DICKENS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✍️ HALF PAGE — "FAREWELL TO DICKENS" A half-page farewell illustration to Charles Dickens — apparently depicting the send-off as Dickens left New York for Boston to continue his reading tour, or perhaps the public's farewell sentiment as the tour began winding down. Published during the height of his American celebrity, this is a companion to the previous week's stage portrait. A significant piece of Victorian literary history. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🖼️ INSIDE THE ISSUE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⛏️ ILLUSTRATION — "THE COAL MINER AT WORK" An illustration of a Pennsylvania coal miner at work underground — a vivid and significant piece of American industrial labor history, capturing the dangerous and essential work that fueled the Gilded Age economy. ⚓ ILLUSTRATION — "THE COAL DEPOT AT RONDOUT, NEW YORK" An illustration of the coal depot at Rondout — the great commercial landing on the Hudson River at Kingston, New York, where anthracite coal from Pennsylvania was transferred to Hudson River barges for distribution to New York City. A significant piece of Hudson Valley industrial and transportation history. 🪨 ILLUSTRATION — "PLYMOUTH ROCK AS IT NOW APPEARS" An illustration of Plymouth Rock as it appeared in 1867 — the celebrated and much-diminished boulder that marked the traditional landing site of the Pilgrims in 1620. A significant piece of American colonial memory and heritage illustration. ⛪ FRONT PAGE — "THE LONG SERMON" A front-page illustration of a mother and two children asleep in church — a warmly humorous and endearing piece of Victorian American religious and genre illustration. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📋 CONDITION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 DETAILS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Publication ········ Harper's Weekly Date ··············· December 14, 1867 City ··············· New York Item Number ········ 173154 Pages ·············· Complete Issue · No supplement Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Housed in an acid-free archival folder with Mylar overlay to protect the 159-year-old newsprint • Flat-shipped with heavy-duty reinforcement • Fully tracked for your peace of mind ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔍 SEO TAGS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ St Thomas US purchase 1867, St Thomas Danish West Indies, Seward St Thomas treaty, Virgin Islands 1867 Seward, US Virgin Islands history antique, St Thomas West Indies Victorian, Danish West Indies American, Caribbean US territory 1867, shooting buffalo trains, buffalo Kansas Pacific Railroad, bison shot from train, Kansas Pacific buffalo antique, bison slaughter Victorian, American bison extinction, Western buffalo hunting antique, buffalo destruction antique print, Farewell to Dickens, Dickens American reading farewell, Charles Dickens American tour, Dickens Harper's Weekly 1867, coal miner work antique, Pennsylvania coal miner, Hudson River coal depot, Rondout coal Kingston, coal industry Victorian, Plymouth Rock 1867, Plymouth Rock colonial memory, Pilgrim landing rock, American colonial heritage, long sermon church humor, Harper's Weekly 1867, antique newspaper 1867, Reconstruction era newspaper, Victorian illustrated newspaper, antique illustration engraving, Victorian wall art, framing quality print, Virgin Islands history, Western Americana buffalo, history lover gift, rare newspaper collectible, museum quality ephemera, Reconstruction era ephemera

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