GoldSmith Maid
date: label: Date made
content: 1874
name: label: publisher
content: Vacuum Oil Co.
label: maker
content: Donaldson Brothers
label: artist
content: Cameron, John
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Color print of a trotting horse pulling a sulky past an octagonal reviewing stand on a race course. Sign on fence read "The Celebrated/ Vacuum Oil Blacking/ Fits Harness Perfectly". This is an advertising print for Vacuum Oil Co.
label: Description
content: A color print of a bay horse, with a black mane and tail, pulling a sulky and driver past a stand on the race track. The driver leans sharply forward to hold the reins taught. The viewing stand is built like pagoda with eight sides and a peaked roof topped by a weathervane covering two balconies with railings on which men in business suits stand. Picket fences enclose the track. The sign on the fence reads: “The Celebrated Vacuum Oil Blacking/Fits Harness Perfectly.”
label: Description
content: Goldsmith Maid was a Standardbred mare foaled in 1857 in Deckertown, NJ to John B. Decker. She was a descendant of Abdallah on both sides from Old Ab and Alexander’s Abdallah, and inbred on her sire’s side. Maid was lively and refused to be harnessed for the first seven years of her life, but one of Decker’s employees secretly road Maid in racing competitions where she began to gain a good reputation. She was eventually sold to William Tompkins, a harness racer, for $400 dollars but quickly sold for the third time, to Alden Goldsmith, in 1865 because she was becoming dangerous to the drivers. Maid began her formal yet unconventional training at age eight, when trainer William Bodine allowed her to set her own pace. The training worked because in 1865 she won her first trotting race with a time of 2:26 and another in 1868 with a time of 2:21 ½, when she was sold again for $20,000 to Budd Doble. She held the position of top trotting horse, a new “Queen of the Turf” in American for eight years of her thirteen year career. By 1870 she had become so popular she traveled to special matches in her own railroad car. She even shaved three seconds off the record mile time of 2:17 at age 17, not to be beaten until 1878 by a much younger horse, Rarus. By the time of her death in 1885 in Trenton, NJ, Goldsmith Maid had won 92 of 121 races and earned a total of $364,200. A period of national mourning took place after she suddenly passed away. She was inducted into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame as an “Immortal” in 1953.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
label: depicted
content: United States: New York
topic: label: depicted
content: Horses
label: Subject
content: Chronology: 1870-1879
label: depicted
content: Horse Racing
label: Subject
content: Architecture, Commercial Buildings
label: related event
content: Goldsmith Maid Race
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: Advertising
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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.60.3534
label: catalog number
content: 60.3534
objectType: label: Object Name
content: chromolithograph
label: Object Type
content: Chromolithograph
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: image: 17 in x 24 1/2 in; 43.18 cm x 62.23 cm