1877 Black Family "Blackville," Mycenae Excavations, Lake Superior — May 12
$36.63
Skip to product information
🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · May 12, 1877
Complete Issue + Supplement Pages · New York
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A historically and visually exceptional issue — a full-page illustration of a Black family on Moving Day, a Nast double-page centerfold, a dramatic cyclone at sea, five views of Lake Superior's Pictured Rocks, and a supplement containing four illustrations of Heinrich Schliemann's landmark Mycenae excavations published in the very years he was making them. Strong content for collectors of Black Americana, classical archaeology, and Victorian natural scenery.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✊ BLACK AMERICANA
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏠 FULL PAGE — "THE FIRST OF MAY IN BLACKVILLE"
A full-page illustration showing a Black family on Moving Day — May 1st was the traditional moving day in New York, when leases expired and families relocated. The "Blackville" series in Harper's Weekly depicted Black American domestic and community life, and while the series has a complex legacy reflecting the racial attitudes of the era, these images are significant primary documents of how Black Americans were represented in the mainstream illustrated press during and after Reconstruction. A notable piece of Black Americana and post-Reconstruction social history.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✏️ THOMAS NAST
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎨 DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD — THOMAS NAST
A Thomas Nast double-page centerfold — his full compositional range deployed across the open breadth of the newspaper in one of his sweeping Gilded Age political statements.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌊 INSIDE THE ISSUE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌀 FULL PAGE — "THE U.S. STEAMER 'POWHATAN' IN A CYCLONE OFF HATTERAS"
A full-page illustration of the naval steamer USS Powhatan caught in a violent cyclone off Cape Hatteras — one of the most feared stretches of the American coastline, known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." A dramatic and powerful piece of American maritime history.
🏔️ THREE-QUARTER PAGE — "PICTURED ROCKS, LAKE SUPERIOR"
Five views of the Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior — the dramatic sandstone cliffs and caves of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, their mineral-streaked surfaces rising directly from the lake. A beautiful piece of Great Lakes natural history, capturing one of America's most striking geological formations at a time when it was barely known to Eastern audiences.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏺 THE SUPPLEMENT — MYCENAE EXCAVATIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏛️ FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS — "THE EXPLORATIONS AT MYCENAE"
A spectacular four-illustration supplement spread documenting Heinrich Schliemann's excavations at Mycenae — the legendary Bronze Age citadel of Agamemnon. The illustrations show:
· The Treasury of Atreus — Entrance
· The Second Treasury
· The Third Treasury
· The Fourth Treasury
Schliemann had excavated Mycenae in 1876, unearthing the famous shaft graves and the so-called Mask of Agamemnon, sending shock waves through the archaeological world. These illustrations were published in the immediate aftermath of that discovery, when the excavations were dominating international headlines. A primary document of one of the most significant archaeological events of the 19th century — and a significant piece for collectors of classical history and Victorian archaeology.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📋 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 ··············· May 12, 1877
City ··············· New York
Item Number ········ 174138
Pages ·············· Complete Issue + Supplement
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Housed in an acid-free archival folder with Mylar overlay to protect the 148-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
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Blackville Black family Victorian, First of May Blackville, Black Americana Harper's Weekly, Black family moving day Victorian, Reconstruction Black American print, African American history antique, post-Reconstruction Black life, Black domestic life Victorian, Mycenae excavations Schliemann, Treasury of Atreus Victorian, Schliemann Mycenae 1876, Victorian archaeology Mycenae, Mycenae Bronze Age print, Mask of Agamemnon Schliemann, classical archaeology antique, Greek Bronze Age Victorian, Pictured Rocks Lake Superior, Lake Superior Michigan, Great Lakes geology Victorian, Pictured Rocks antique print, USS Powhatan cyclone, Powhatan Hatteras storm, Cape Hatteras shipwreck, Graveyard Atlantic Victorian, naval steamer cyclone print, Thomas Nast centerfold 1877, Nast double page cartoon, Harper's Weekly 1877, antique newspaper 1877, Victorian illustrated newspaper, Gilded Age newspaper, antique illustration engraving, Victorian wall art, framing quality print, Black Americana collector, classical archaeology collector, history lover gift, rare newspaper collectible, museum quality ephemera, Gilded Age ephemera, Greek history antique print
1877 Black Family "Blackville," Mycenae Excavations, Lake Superior — May 12
$36.63