Slavery as It Is
date: label: Date made
content: 1858
name: label: referenced
content: Burns, Anthony
label: maker
content: Farwells & Forrest
notes: label: Description
content: This colored broadside advertises “The Great Moving Mirror of Slavery,” a travelling panoramic painting exhibited in New England in 1858. According to the inscription, it was on display in the Methodist Church. Purported to reveal “Slavery As It Is,” this poster contains two preview illustrations. One shows a young girl lying in a canopied bed attended by a doctor, as her mother and a black man sit nearby. The other image depicts a white man riding a bucking horse as three black men and a black woman watch. Headings on the poster advertise, “Scenes in Africa,” an “Auction Sale of Slaves,” and “Life-Like Scenes!” The exhibit also promises a personal appearance by Anthony Burns.
label: Description
content: Burns (1834-1862) was born a slave in Stafford County, Virginia in 1834, became a Baptist preacher,and escaped to Boston in 1853/1854. The next year, he was captured and put on public trial, inspiring protest by thousands of abolitionists. Several people were arrested and wounded, while they attempted to free Burns and a U.S. Marshall was fatally stabbed. Under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Act, Burns was returned to his "owner" in Virginia. In 1855, Leonard Grimes, a free black Baptist minister bought Burns’ freedom. Burns then travelled north and studied theology at Oberlin College in Ohio and emigrated to Canada and worked as a non-ordained minister . In 1858, he toured with “The Great Moving Mirror,” using the opportunity to sell copies of narrative of his life to sympathetic anti-slavery Northerners. He died in 1862 of tuberculosis at the age of 28, having never regained his health after enduring several months in a Richmond slave jail.
label: Description
content: The print was created by the firm of J.H. & F.F. Farwell & Gordon Forrest. The three men founded a Boston lithographic firm active around the middle of the 19th century. Gordon Forrest enlisted in Company G of the First Massachusetts Infantry during the Civil War. He was killed on July 18, 1861, during a skirmish at Blackburn’s Ford, Virginia, one of the first engagements of the conflict. Little is known about J.H. and F.F. Farwell. The printers were also known as Farwells & Forest.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
topic: label: Subject
content: Horses
label: Subject
content: Children
label: Subject
content: Reform Movements
label: Subject
content: Furnishings
label: Subject
content: African American
label: referenced
content: Civil War
label: Subject
content: Slavery
label: Subject
content: abolitionism
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: Advertising
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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.60.3001
label: catalog number
content: 60.3001
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: poster
label: Object Type
content: Engraving
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: engraving (image production method/technique)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 39 3/4 in x 12 3/4 in; 100.965 cm x 32.385 cm