Charles Sumner
date: label: Date made
content: 1874
name: label: depicted
content: Sumner, Charles
label: maker
content: Schile, Henry
notes: label: Description
content: On May 22, 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas crisis, Massachusetts Republican Senator, Charles Sumner, delivered a speech to Congress in which he denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and demanded that Kansas be admitted to the Union as a free state. In his oration, he verbally attacked the pro-slavery South Carolina Senator, Andrew Butler. Two days later, Preston Brooks, a South Carolina Congressman and also Butler’s cousin, nearly beat Sumner to death on the Senate floor with a cane. Responses to the attack in the North and the South further polarized the people of the nation, leading it further down the path to war. Even before he had gained renown as the victim of “Bleeding Sumner,” the Senator had been a strong proponent of abolition and civil rights for African Americans. In 1848, the city of Boston denied Sarah Robert, a five-year-old black girl, enrollment at a white-only school. Sumner represented the Roberts in front of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, challenging the racial segregation of Boston schools in the state. Although the Court ruled in favor of Boston, deeming that racial segregation was not unconstitutional, Sumner’s argument was cited in Brown v. Board of Education, which prohibited segregated schools nationwide.
label: Description
content: This print containing a three-quarter length portrait of the statesman celebrates one of his last efforts for racial equality. While Sumner tucks right hand tucked into his jacket, his left points down to a pile of papers exclaiming, “Equal Rights to All … Do Not Let the Civil Rights Bill Fail.” While the lithograph was produced to memorialize the Senator after his death in 1874, it also urged support for the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which Sumner drafted and proposed during the 41st Congress of the United States. The Act guaranteed African Americans equal access to public accommodations and transportation and was passed by Congress a year after Sumner’s death and signed into law by President Grant. The Act did indeed die, however, in 1883, when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional during the Civil Rights Cases.
label: Description
content: Henry Schile, the creator of this print, was probably a German immigrant, as many of his prints relate to the German immigrant population in New York. He founded the H. Schile and Company, producing very brightly colored chromolithography in the late 1860’s and 1870’s and much of his work is done on heavy black paper. He was married to Marguerite Schaeffer (1830-1895).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
topic: label: Subject
content: Communication, letter writing
label: Subject
content: U.S. National Government, judiciary
label: Subject
content: U.S. National Government, legislative branch
label: Subject
content: Furnishings
label: Subject
content: Chronology: 1870-1879
label: Subject
content: Reform Movements
label: Subject
content: Blacks
label: referenced
content: Civil War
label: Subject
content: civil rights
label: related event
content: Civil War
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: Clothing & Accessories
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content: American Civil War Prints
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content: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.60.2458
label: catalog number
content: 60.2458
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Chromolithograph
label: Object Type
content: Chromolithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 16 1/2 in x 21 1/2 in; 41.91 cm x 54.61 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 24 in x 30 in; 60.96 cm x 76.2 cm