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The First Colored Senator and Representatives, In the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States

The First Colored Senator and Representatives, In the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States/tiles/collection/3/31491.xml
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Date

1872

Publisher

Currier & Ives

Dimensions

10 7/8 × 13 7/8 in. (27.6 × 35.2 cm)

Accession Number

2019.120.000

Credit Line

Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives

Object Details

Currier and Ives published this print in 1872, combining the portraits of seven Black legislators from the 41st and 42nd Congresses. The collage image was not breaking news, but rather a commemoration of the historic results of enfranchisement during Reconstruction. Senator Hiram Revels, Representatives Benjamin Turner, Josiah Walls, Joseph Rainey, and Robert Brown Elliott sit in the foreground, in front of Robert De Large and Jefferson Long. Promoting itself as “Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures,” Currier and Ives created lithographs of current events, political satire, and sentimental genre scenes for much of the 19th century.

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Office of the Historian: history@mail.house.gov
Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk: art@mail.house.gov, archives@mail.house.gov