Description

93. Brust, James, and Wendy Shadwell. “The Many Versions and States of The Awful Conflagration of the Steam Boat Lexington.” Vol. 15, no. 2 (Autumn 1990), 2-13.

This article examines the publication history of one of the most important and popular images issued by Nathaniel Currier and other lithographers in 1840. Many thousands of impressions of three versions by Currier poured forth. The article includes a list of versions and states with locations in collections and a bibliography on the disaster. See also the update in the Spring 1993 issue, item 107.

94. Fowble, E. McSherry. “Currier & Ives and the American Parlor.” Vol. 15, no. 2 (Autumn 1990), 14-19.

In an interesting look at material culture through the medium of lithography, Fowble examines how Currier & Ives prints both influenced and reflected taste in the nineteenth century. The parlor depicted in Currier & Ives’ 1868 lithograph The Season of Rest (Plate 4 in The Four Seasons of Life series) is compared with the arrangements suggested in manuals for young housekeepers such as Frances Byerly Parker’s Domestic Duties (New York, 1828), Catherine Beecher and Harriet B. Stowe’s The American Woman’s Home (1869), and Almon C. Varney’s Our Homes and Their Adornments (1882). Fowble concludes that the prints do reflect the dictates of these manuals but also show that housewives and artists were not enslaved by them.

95. Magill, John T. “Pelican’s Eyes: Views of New Orleans.” Vol. 15, no. 2 (Autumn 1990), 20-31.

Magill surveys bird’s-eye views of New Orleans from 1803 through the 1880s. He attempts, in particular, to assess the accuracy of these images. Distortion of New Orleans is caused by the topography of the city, sprawled along the curves of the Mississippi River.