1877 Hudson Bay Christmas, Cherokee Syllabary, Italian Children — Jan 13
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🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · January 13, 1877
Complete Issue + Supplement Pages · New York
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A visually and historically exceptional issue — Hudson Bay Company fur trade Christmas scenes, Montreal snowshoe club winter sports, a Thomas Nast front page, and a supplement containing two exquisite Italian child portrait engravings, the Cherokee syllabary, and a map of Cyprus. Rarely does a single issue span fur trade history, Indigenous language, Victorian winter sports, and Italian genre art in one package.
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🖼️ THE FRONT PAGE
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✏️ FULL FRONT PAGE — THOMAS NAST: "JUSTICE BRINGS PEACE"
A Thomas Nast political cartoon leading the full front page — published during the tense final weeks of the Hayes-Tilden electoral crisis, Nast's vision of justice as the path to political resolution.
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🎄 INSIDE THE ISSUE
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🦫 FULL PAGE — "CHRISTMAS IN THE WILDS — WITH THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY HUNTERS"
A full-page illustration of Christmas celebrations among Hudson's Bay Company fur traders and hunters in the Canadian wilderness — a vivid document of the fur trade culture that had defined northern North America for two centuries. The HBC, chartered in 1670, was still the dominant force in the Canadian fur trade in 1877, and its remote trading posts represented one of the most distinct ways of life on the continent. A significant piece of Canadian history and fur trade Americana.
🛷 FULL PAGE — "SLEIGHING SKETCHES IN NEW YORK"
A lively full-page spread of winter sleighing scenes in New York City — the Gilded Age's favorite winter pastime captured in all its social energy and spectacle.
🏔️ NEARLY FULL PAGE — "THE TERRA NOVA SNOWSHOE CLUB OF MONTREAL" & "ONE MORE MOUTH TO FEED"
The Terra Nova Snowshoe Club was one of Montreal's premier winter sports clubs — part of the great Victorian snowshoeing culture that made Montreal famous as a winter sports destination in the 1870s and 1880s. These clubs held torchlight processions and competitive snowshoe races that drew enormous crowds. A wonderful piece of Canadian winter sports history.
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🎨 THE SUPPLEMENT
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🖼️ DOUBLE-PAGE — "ITALIAN CHILDREN: THE YOUNG FRUIT-SELLER" & "THE YOUNG FLAGEOLET-PLAYER"
Two magnificent large portrait engravings filling the double-page supplement spread — a young Italian girl seated with a basket of cherries, mountains in the background; and a young Italian boy playing a flageolet (a small wind instrument), a rocky coastal landscape behind him. Both are rendered with extraordinary delicacy and warmth, in the finest tradition of Victorian Italian genre portraiture. Exquisite standalone art pieces, very well suited to framing.
🔤 THE CHEROKEE SYLLABARY
A page featuring the Cherokee syllabary — the writing system invented by Sequoyah (also known as George Gist) around 1820, enabling the Cherokee people to achieve widespread literacy within their own language within just a few years of its introduction. Sequoyah's syllabary is one of the most remarkable intellectual achievements in American history — a complete writing system created by a single individual who was himself illiterate in English. The syllabary remains in use today. This Harper's Weekly page presenting the Cherokee alphabet to a national audience is a significant piece of Cherokee and Indigenous American history.
🗺️ MAP — "DIAGRAM OF THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS"
A map of Cyprus published in the context of the escalating Eastern Question crisis — the Ottoman Empire's Balkan territories were then the focus of intense international attention, and Cyprus, still under Ottoman control, would be transferred to British administration just the following year in 1878. A historically well-timed piece of Eastern Mediterranean cartography.
🎭 SUPPLEMENT ILLUSTRATION — "CHORAL LABOR"
A humorous multi-panel illustration of a choral club rehearsal — singers, conductors, and pianists in various comic poses capturing the Victorian enthusiasm for amateur choral singing with affectionate wit.
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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 ··············· January 13, 1877
City ··············· New York
Item Number ········ 174104
Pages ·············· Complete Issue + Supplement
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper
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📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
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• 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 supplement pages
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind
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🔍 SEO TAGS
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1877 Hudson Bay Christmas, Cherokee Syllabary, Italian Children — Jan 13
$54.32