Practical Amalgamation (The Dinner Party)
date: label: Date made
content: 1839
name: label: maker
content: Childs, John
label: artist
content: Clay, Edward Williams
notes: label: Description
content: This print, designed by E.W. Clay, a Northern opponent of the abolition and anti-slavery movement plays upon antebellum fears of miscegenation, or interracial mixing, to satirize abolitionism. Part of series of miscegenation prints done by Clay during 1839, the print depicts a formal dinner party during which the black host of the party addresses his guests - six interracial couples who are seated on either side of the table. The host’s white wife sits across from him. Above the host’s head hang portraits of himself and his wife, and to the far right, one of their multiracial children. From the head of the table, the host toasts “De Union ob colors,” which “gibs a wholesome odour to fashionable siety.” Meanwhile, six white servants attend to the guests and serve drinks.
label: Description
content: Edward Williams Clay was born in Philadelphia in 1799. He originally found employment as an attorney and became a member of the Philadelphia Bar Association in 1825, but he later abandoned law for a career in art. He moved to New York City in 1837 but shortly after was forced to end his artistic career when his eyesight began to fail.
label: Description
content: The work’s publisher, John Childs, was a New York lithographer, artist, and print colorist active between the years 1836 to 1844. For a brief period, he published a quantity of political cartoons, especially in 1840, when he published 34, of which 26 were drawn by Clay.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
topic: label: Subject
content: Blacks
label: Subject
content: Furnishings
label: Subject
content: Courtship, love
label: Subject
content: Drinking
label: Subject
content: Eating
label: Subject
content: Chronology: 1830-1839
label: Subject
content: Adornment
label: Subject
content: Marriage
label: Subject
content: African American
label: Subject
content: Political Caricatures
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.60.3337
label: catalog number
content: 60.3337
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Lithograph
label: Object Type
content: Lithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 10 in x 14 1/2 in; 25.4 cm x 36.83 cm