finding aid V100 Newsam backup - Make History Yours · a young man, and became an apprentice with Philadelphia lithographer Col. Cephas G. Childs (1793-1871) in 1827, after which
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Contact: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107 Phone: (215) 732-6200 FAX: (215) 732-2680 http://www.hsp.org
Processed by: Sandra Markham Processing Completed: March 2007
Abstract Born deaf, Albert Newsam (1809-1864) achieved fame as a copier and portraitist in Philadelphia, and his work became well-known throughout the United States. His portrait subjects include many prominent Philadelphians and other Americans, but he also created sheet music covers, medical drawings, and genre art. This collection is made up of seven hundred and fifty lithographic prints and one drawing, which span from the 1820s to the late 1850s.
Background note Albert Newsam (1809-1864) was a deaf artist who was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and orphaned at an early age. Through devious means he was taken to Philadelphia where, by good fortune, he was admitted in 1820 to the recently established Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. Newsam had exhibited great talent as an artist while a young man, and became an apprentice with Philadelphia lithographer Col. Cephas G. Childs (1793-1871) in 1827, after which he became the principal artist with the noted printer Peter S. Duval (1804 or 05-1886). A master copyist and portraitist, Newsam is generally credited with helping to elevate the art of lithography in the United States. His career ended suddenly in 1859 when he suffered a stroke that affected his vision and coordination; he spent his final years at Dr. John A. Brown’s Living Home for the Sick and Well, near Wilmington, Delaware, a situation arranged for him and funded by a committee of friends that included John A. McAllister.
Scope & content The Albert Newsam print collection primarily consists of black and white lithographed portraits drawn on stone by Newsam from life or after other artists and photographers. The collection has been arranged in four groups by size, then alphabetically by subject within each size group. Each print has been assigned a number relating to an inventory of identified Newsam portraits made by Wendy Wick Reaves in 1984; those numbers run
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from 1 to 510 as applied to a list of names in alphabetical order by sitter. Forty-five additional numbers were assigned in 2006 to cover works not included in Reaves’ original list. Reaves based her numbering scheme on a list previously compiled by David McNeely Stauffer in the early 1900s. While her list included portraits owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, it also included portraits in the collections of the Library of Congress and the National Portrait Gallery. Please see the “Related materials” section on Page 3 for information on portraits at other institutions. The collection holds images of several hundred prominent figures from the period spanning the late 1820s through the late 1850s. There are more than seventy religious figures, particularly Episcopal and Presbyterian clergyman, many of which were published in the U.S. Ecclesiastical Portrait Gallery (1841), and the Presbyterian Historical Almanac (1858). Many of the subjects are politicians, but also represented are doctors, dentists, lawyers, judges, military figures, writers, composers, dancers, musicians, actors, and Philadelphia merchants. Of the politicians, there are portraits of eight Pennsylvania governors from George Wolf (1829) through William F. Packer (1858), fifteen American presidents from George Washington through James Buchanan (1857), cabinet members, and congressmen from a variety of states. Many of Newsam’s works were produced for publications – both books and serials – as well as for sheet music. Some of the prints have printed or hand-applied color. Several of the images are present in varying states, and there are a number of duplicates. Artists most often copied are the painters Henry Inman, Charles Bird King, John Neagle, Gilbert Stuart, and Thomas Sully, and Philadelphia photographers M.A. Root and McClees & Germon. The prints were primarily published by P.S. Duval, as well as other firms including: C.G. Childs; Childs & Inman; Pendleton, Kearny & Childs; Lehman & Duval. Also included in the collection are the plates from four medical publications published in Philadelphia that contain images by Newsam: Pancoast’s Treatise on Operative Surgery (1st edition, 1844 and 3rd edition, 1852); Quain and Wilson’s Series of Anatomical Plates (1842); and Rayer’s A Theoretical and Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Skin (1845).
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Separation report None.
Related materials At HSP: Newsam created a series of portraits of Indians for Thomas L. McKenney’s noted work History of the Indian tribes of North America: with biographical sketches and anecdotes of the principal chiefs (1838-44). [E77 .M155 1933]
At The Library Company of Philadelphia: Albert Newsam Papers (McA MSS 003), letters from Newsam to John A. McAllister in the John A. McAllister Papers (McA MSS 001), and many prints by Newsam, including portraits and his design for monument to Thomas H. Gallaudet (1787-1851) on the grounds of the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb (now the American School for the Deaf) in Hartford, CT. At the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.: LOC holds several Newsam prints. Their “Prints and Photographs Online Catalog” can be searched at:: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html At the National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.: NPG holds a significant number of Newsam prints. Their collections can be searched online at: http://npgportraits.si.edu/eMuseumNPG/code/emuseum.asp?newpage=NPG
Bibliography
Joseph O. Pyatt, Memoir of Albert Newsam (1864). [Gn 54] David McNeely Stauffer, “Lithographic Portraits of Albert Newsam,” in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 24-26 (1900-1901). [UPA F 146.P65] Wendy Wick Reaves, “Portraits for Every Parlor: Albert Newsam and American Portrait Lithography,” in American Portrait Prints (1984). [NE 260.N67 1979]
Subjects
Newsam, Albert, 1809-1864. McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896. Inman, Henry, 1801-1846. King, Charles Bird, 1785-1862. Neagle, John, 1796-1865. Stuart, Gilbert, 1755-1828. Sully, Thomas, 1783-1872. Root, M. A. (Marcus Aurelius), 1808-1888.
Acquisition information Acquired by gift and purchase. Albert Newsam’s own portfolio of prints (162 pieces) were donated by John A. McAllister in April 1881.
Preferred citation Cite as: [Indicate cited item or series here], Albert Newsam Print Collection (V-100), Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Processing note Processed by Sandra Markham, March 2007. Prints were formerly housed in five folio albums created by the Historical Society in the 1960s, with several prints affixed to each page. They were removed from the albums in 2006 and individually foldered. The prints are cataloged in an Access database with eighteen points of information for each: Reaves numbers; Subject/Sitter; Life Dates; Occupation; Original Artist; Publisher; Date; Height; Width; Acquisition Source; Acquisition Date; and Box Number/Folder Number. Additionally, there are check boxes if the original source was a photograph, if the piece is a book illustration or sheet music, and if Newsam inscribed it. There are fields for general notes, and to record if the image is part of a series.
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Box and folder listing Box 1: Small portraits, A-G