Sign up to receive email notices of recent acquisitions.

Joseph Boggs Beale, et al.

[Uncle Tom’s Cabin magic lantern slides.]

T. H. McAllister, ca. 1880s; L. Manasse. 8 magic lantern slides of scenes from Uncle Tom’s Cabin; with a slide picturing an engraved portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe published by L. Manasse, Chicago. CONDITION: Very good, some small losses to paper edging; one slide lacking glass back.

A partial set of magic lantern slides reproducing watercolors of scenes from Uncle Tom’s Cabin drawn by Joseph Boggs Beale after the Hammatt Billings illustrations for the first two editions of Stowe’s novel. They were originally produced by the Philadelphia-based C. W. Briggs Company, but other editions appeared over the years, including this one by T. H. McAllister, another leading American producer of this popular pre-cinematic form of mass entertainment. While colored slides were typically used for public shows, this black and white edition was likely intended for home entertainment. Offered here are eight of the original twelve-slide set: “Escape of Eliza and child on the ice” (no. 3) in which a very white-looking Eliza leaps from one chunk of ice to the next across the thawing Ohio River; “Uncle Tom sold and leaving his family” (no. 4); the moment in which “Eva St. Clair makes a friend of Uncle Tom” (no. 5), after which “Uncle Tom saves Eva from drowning” (no. 6); “Eva and Topsy” (no. 8); “Eva reading to Uncle Tom” (no. 9) on a bench under a rose arbor; “Eva’s dying farewell” (no. 10); and finally the “Death of Uncle Tom” (no. 11), comforted in his last moments by George Shelby while Legree looms just behind. Although just one slide bears the McAllister company’s name and address, all but two others share the the same decorative gilt border. The slide of Harriet Beecher Stowe, evidently by a different artist, was published by the Chicago-based optical firm L. Manasse.

Item #4993

Price: $750.00