Lippincott's New Series: The Second Reading Book by Eben Harlow Davis
date: label: date made
content: 1889
name: label: publisher
content: J. B. Lippincott & Co.
notes: label: Description
content: This vocabulary book for young readers presents lessons in the form of short stories. Characters are middle class white children and their families, as well as animals. The stories illustrate the daily life of privileged children in the late 19th Century. Some of the lessons also serve to shed light on common racial stereotypes. For example, Lesson 22 contains the character of Fred, an African-American boy of five who works informally as a servant. The text explains that Fred is the orphaned son of a “negro nurse” from the South, who took care of the children’s mother who is now the Southern-born lady of the house. The matriarch was fond of the nurse, the author explains, and so adopted her son Fred after his mother’s death and brought him up North.
label: Description
content: Eben Harlow Davis (1840-1915) graduated from Harvard University and became a teacher and later Superintendent of Public Schools for Chelsea, Massachusetts. He authored and compiled a series of vocabulary books for young readers that presents lessons in the form of short stories. This Lippincott Series included <i>The Beginner’s Reading Book</I> through to <i>The Fourth Reading Book.</i>
label: Description
content: Born in 1813 in New Jersey, Joshua Ballinger Lippincott became a bookseller shortly after he moved to Philadelphia at age 14. He purchased Grigg, Elliott & Co. in 1850, which was reputed to be “the largest book jobbing house in the country.” J. B. Lippincott & Co. continued to grow throughout the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and was known for having a comprehensive portfolio in a variety of genres, including religion, medicine, poetry, and Americana. By the 1940s the firm estimated it had sold 20 million books—not including millions of textbooks. Harper & Row acquired Lippincott in 1978.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Education
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dr. Richard Lodish American School Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2017.3049.23
label: nonaccession number
content: 2017.3049
label: catalog number
content: 2017.3049.23
objectType: label: Object Name
content: book
label: Object Type
content: instructional materials
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: printed (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 1/2 in x 5 in x 3/4 in; 19.05 cm x 12.7 cm x 1.905 cm