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Lot 178
Sale 994 - African Americana
Feb 23, 2022
11:00AM ET
Live / Cincinnati
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Estimate
$200 -
300
Price Realized
$625
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
[15TH AMENDMENT]. Hedgehog's Grand Combination of the Powers of Darkness. [Philadelphia?]: N.p., 1870.
6 1/4 x 10 1/8 in. letterpress broadside (some offsetting, very small loss to lower left corner).
An anti-Fifteenth Amendment parody broadside in the style of early minstrelsy handbills. Printed in various fonts it lists the program with racist songs and “the whole to conclude with Hedgehog’s celebrated feat of swallowing a Live Negro!” The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified on 3 February 1870, which prohibited the denial of a citizen’s right to vote based upon “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The amendment was greeted with celebrations among African American and abolitionist communities with one of the largest held in Philadelphia on 5 May 1870, billed as the “Grand Celebration in Honor of the Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.” This anti-Black broadside was likely printed as an attack on the official celebration.
Collection of Tom Charles Huston

