Volunteer
date: label: Date made
content: 1869
name: label: maker
content: Mayer & Merkel
label: original artist
content: Humphrey, Charles S.
label: artist
content: Geissler, L.
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Color print of a trotting horse pulling a four-wheeled open wagon. Race track visible in background.
label: Description
content: A color print of a brown stallion with a black mane, tail, and legs pulling a driver seated in a plain buggy. The driver wears a white shirt, jacket, a derby hat, and brown pants. The background shows a white church and a schoolhouse, along with various homes and possibly a grandstand for a race course. Two American flags are waving.
label: Description
content: Volunteer was foaled on May 1, 1854 Orange County, New York by Joseph Hetzel. His dam was Lady Patriot and his sire was Hambletonian and considered the most handsome of Hambletonian’s progeny. He was bought by Alden Goldsmith of Washingtonville, NY, the owner of Goldsmith Maid, in 1861. Prior to this purchase, he had been called Hambletonian Jr., but the patriotic sentiment of the Civil War prompted a name change. Volunteer’s best time on record was 2:37 for the mile. He gained a breeding reputation in 1871 and produced many first-rate trotters, including St. Julien who was at once the fastest trotter in the world. He lived to the age of 34, passing on December 12, 1888 on Walnut Grove Farm, Washingtonville, NY. Volunteer was inducted as in “Immortal” into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 1998.
label: Description
content: The firm of Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann worked in New Jersey in the late 1800’s. The firm's most renowned client was Puck magazine -- the first weekly magazine in America to offer color illustrations. In addition to printing the cartoons of Puck, the firm attracted a wide variety of other commercial clients. By the mid-1800's Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann had become one of the largest American lithographic firms. They did a wide variety of work, including advertising posters, pamphlets and reproductions of oil and watercolor paintings. In the 1880's and 1890's Mayer Merkel & Ottmann shared the honor with the Donaldson Brothers of being the largest American trade card producers. In the 1880’s they created three color lithograph and letterpress print advertising the proprietory medicines of E. S. Wells, chemist. In 1885, Mayer and Merkel retired from the firm and Ottmann took over the business, renaming it J. Ottmann Lithographing Company, which continued in business until the first decade of the 20th century, when it was merged into the United States Printing & Lithographing Company.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
topic: label: Subject
content: Architecture
label: Subject
content: Chronology: 1860-1869
label: Subject
content: Patriotism and Patriotic Symbols
label: depicted
content: Horses
label: depicted
content: Horse Racing
label: Subject
content: Wagons
label: Subject
content: Architecture, Domestic Buildings
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: Art
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content: Peters Prints
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content: Domestic Furnishings
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content: Horses
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.60.3566
label: catalog number
content: 60.3566
objectType: label: Object Name
content: chromolithograph
label: Object Type
content: Chromolithograph
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: image: 17 7/8 in x 24 in; 45.4025 cm x 60.96 cm