Books and Manuscripts

No place, ca. late 1890s. Lithographic memorial portrait print. 22 x 18 in. (559 x 457 mm). Light mat burn; scattered repairs along edges. In period frame, 28 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (730 x 603 mm).

A memorial lithographic portrait of orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1817-95), likely printed sometime following his death in 1895. After Douglass's death many memorial prints were produced, and a similar one, with the same image, but with Douglass facing the opposite direction, was printed in Chicago in 1895.

From the collection of Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1898-1989), the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in economics in the United States, and the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She was appointed to the President's Committee on Civil Rights by Harry Truman in 1946, was the first woman appointed Assistant City Solicitor in Philadelphia, and along with her husband, were both active in civil rights.