Philadelphia Lithographer

1844-1854: 17 South 5th Street
1855-1856: 97 Chestnut Street
1857-1866: Northeast corner of 4th and Chestnut Streets (57 South 4th)

W. H. Rease (ca. 1818-1893) made many advertising prints and is described by Nicholas B. Wainwright in Philadelphia in the Romantic Age of Lithography as “Philadelphia’s Foremost Trade Card Artist.” Rease was in partnership with Francis Schell from about 1853-1855 and Horatio J. Kurtz (as Rease & Kurtz) around 1867. He often worked with the printers Frederick Kuhl and Wagner & McGuigan.

For more information on Rease, visit Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers.

Selected Images

Rease & Schell (lithographer), Traubel & Co. (printer), Burton & Laning’s Paper Hangings Manufactory [Lithograph, ca. 1855]. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Rease & Schell, Odd Fellows’ Broadway Hall. Broad & Spring Garden Streets, Philadelphia [Lithograph, ca. 1855]. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

W. H. Rease (lithographer), Wagner & McGuigan (printer), Cornelius & Baker, 181 Cherry Street Philadelphia [Lithograph, 1856]. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

W. H. Rease (lithographer), T. Sinclair & Co. (printer), Haverford School [Lithograph, 1857-60]. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

Rease & Kurtz, City of Philadelphia, 1867 [Lithograph, 1867]. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.