1874 Blacks Voting Cartoon, Eagles Duel Centerfold, Africa Gold — Oct 31
$39.99
Skip to product information
🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · October 31, 1874
Complete Issue + Supplement Pages · New York
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A visually spectacular and historically significant Halloween issue — a dramatic eagle duel centerfold, a full page of White Mountain scenery, a vivid African gold fields illustration, a Thomas Nast front page, a political cartoon of Black Americans voting, and a supplement featuring a magnificent trained performance bear. Strong content across multiple collecting categories including Black Americana, Western Americana, African colonial history, and Victorian natural history.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✊ BLACK AMERICANA & RECONSTRUCTION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🗳️ POLITICAL CARTOON — BLACK AMERICANS VOTING
A political cartoon depicting Black Americans casting their votes — published just days before the 1874 midterm elections, at the precise moment when Reconstruction-era Black political participation was under its most violent assault from White League terrorism in the South. A primary document of African American political history and the fragile promise of Black voting rights in the Reconstruction era. Significant for collectors of Black Americana and civil rights history.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🖼️ THE FRONT PAGE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✏️ FULL FRONT PAGE — THOMAS NAST: "NOT SO EASILY TAKEN IN"
A Thomas Nast political cartoon leading the full front page — a pointed commentary on political gullibility and manipulation in the Gilded Age election season.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🦅 THE CENTERFOLD
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🦅 DRAMATIC DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD — "A DUEL IN THE AIR — EAGLES FIGHTING OVER THEIR PREY"
The visual showpiece of the issue — a sweeping, dramatic double-page centerfold of two eagles locked in fierce aerial combat over their prey, rendered with breathtaking detail across the full open breadth of the newspaper. A powerful and spectacular piece of Victorian natural history illustration — dynamic, atmospheric, and among the most frameable centerfolds in the 1874 run.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌍 AFRICAN GOLD FIELDS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⛏️ FULL PAGE — "ON THE WAY TO THE AFRICAN GOLD FIELDS — PONTOON FERRY OVER THE VAAL RIVER"
A full-page illustration documenting the great South African gold rush of the early 1870s — prospectors and their equipment crossing the Vaal River on a pontoon ferry, headed for the diamond and gold fields of southern Africa. The Vaal River region was then electrifying the world with its mineral wealth, drawing prospectors from across the globe. This image is a primary document of the Victorian-era African mining rush that would ultimately reshape South Africa's history. Two additional large Vaal River crowd scenes visible in the centerfold spread.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏔️ ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🍂 FULL PAGE — "OCTOBER IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS"
Eleven scenes of autumn in New Hampshire's White Mountains — a beloved Victorian destination and the subject of some of America's finest landscape art. A beautifully varied page of fall foliage, mountain panoramas, and seasonal genre scenes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🐻 THE SUPPLEMENT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎪 LARGE ILLUSTRATION — "THE PERFORMING BEAR"
A magnificent near-full-page illustration of a trained circus or performance bear balancing a tray of bottles and glasses on his nose — a wonderfully unusual and eye-catching Victorian entertainment scene. The kind of quirky, charming image that stops a scroll and delights collectors of Victorian circus and animal 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 ··············· October 31, 1874
City ··············· New York
Item Number ········ 173874
Pages ·············· Complete · 16 pages + Supplement
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Housed in an acid-free archival folder with Mylar overlay to protect the 151-year-old newsprint
• Flat-shipped with heavy-duty reinforcement to ensure safe arrival of the centerfold and supplement
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔍 SEO TAGS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Black Americans voting 1874, Reconstruction voting rights, African American voting cartoon, Black voting Reconstruction, civil rights 1874 print, Reconstruction election cartoon, Black Americana antique print, African American history antique, eagle duel centerfold, eagles fighting Victorian, eagle aerial battle print, Victorian natural history print, eagle illustration antique, dramatic eagle engraving, African gold fields 1874, Vaal River gold rush, South Africa gold rush Victorian, pontoon ferry Vaal River, Victorian Africa illustration, South African mining history, Thomas Nast political cartoon, Nast front page 1874, Gilded Age election cartoon, White Mountains autumn, New Hampshire White Mountains, October autumn Victorian, fall foliage Victorian print, performing bear Victorian, circus bear illustration, trained bear antique print, Victorian circus animal, Harper's Weekly 1874, antique newspaper 1874, Victorian illustrated newspaper, Gilded Age newspaper, antique illustration engraving, Victorian wall art, framing quality print, Black Americana collector, African American history collector, history lover gift, rare newspaper collectible, museum quality ephemera, Gilded Age ephemera, eagle wall art antique, Victorian nature print
1874 Blacks Voting Cartoon, Eagles Duel Centerfold, Africa Gold — Oct 31
$39.99