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Large Pictures for Assembly Halls and Offices…

Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, [1920s]. Illustrated broadside, 10” x 7” (sheet size). CONDITION: Good, horizontal crease mark, some losses to lower edge, minor tears at margins.

A “Negro uplift” broadside advertising near-life size portraits of six important figures in African American history—Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Abraham Lincoln, Phillis Wheatley, and Toussaint Louverture. 

The first three reproduce photographic portraits, while the latter three are reproductions of paintings or engravings. These “Large pictures” are advertised for use in “Assembly Halls and Offices” and are described as “the most desirable pictures of the kind ever offered the public.” The price is listed as $1.00 a piece or six for $5.00. The name and address of Associated Publishers, Inc. appears at the bottom.

The poster is emblematic of the “racial uplift” (or “Negro uplift”) movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which began in the African American community as a way to better their socioeconomic and political status through education, financial success, and activism. Printed material from that era often focused on visual representations of successful African Americans intended for homes, offices, and community institutions. 

Associated Publishers, Inc. was founded by Carter G. Woodson in Washington, D.C., in 1922 as a vehicle to publish his own work and other Black scholarship that had been previously rejected by white publishers. Woodson, often called “the Father of African American history,” also intended for the business to fund research at his Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, but the firm never became profitable. Associated Publishers did succeed, however, in issuing a large number of works on African American subjects, many of them by Black authors who may not have had their work published elsewhere. The firm was most active in the 1920s and 1930s, and continued in operation until the 1940s. 

Item #10064

On Hold

Price: $450.00

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