Currier & Ives/Joseph Koehler Furniture

Currier and Ives, the preeminent purveyor of hand colored lithographs from the mid 19th century until the business closed 1907 offered a multitude of images depicting in an idealized fashion a broad spectrum of life in America , which appealed to an extremely broad range of the American population and beyond. Between 1879 – 1890, the Dark Town series, one of Currier & Ives' best-sellers, embraced negative stereotypes about former slaves in the north during the post civil war era. In the 75 print series, black Americans are depicted as buffoonish cartoon characters in a full array of activities; at the racetrack, playing football, baseball, as firemen, at lawn parties, and such. The broad popularity of this series, in fact, more popular with northern buyers than in the south, bears vivid testimony of the racial attitudes of white, middle class Americans during this time. So popular was the series the one print sold an astounding 73,000 copies! This collection of five lithographs of the “Dark Town Fire Brigade...