File:Emancipation LCCN2004665360.jpg

English: Title: Emancipation

Abstract: Thomas Nast's celebration of the emancipation of Southern slaves with the end of the Civil War. Nast envisions a somewhat optimistic picture of the future of free blacks in the United States. The central scene shows the interior of a freedman's home with the family gathered around a "Union" wood stove. The father bounces his small child on his knee while his wife and others look on. On the wall near the mantel hang a picture of Abraham Lincoln and a banjo. Below this scene is an oval portrait of Lincoln and above it, Thomas Crawford's statue of "Freedom." On either side of the central picture are scenes contrasting black life in the South under the Confederacy (left) with visions of the freedman's life after the war (right). At top left fugitive slaves are hunted down in a coastal swamp. Below, a black man is sold, apart from his wife and children, on a public auction block. At bottom a black woman is flogged and a male slave branded. Above, two hags, one holding the three-headed hellhound Cerberus, preside over these scenes, and flee from the gleaming apparition of Freedom. In contrast, on the right, a woman with an olive branch and scales of justice stands triumphant. Here, a freedman's cottage can be seen in a peaceful landscape. Below, a black mother sends her children off to "Public School." At bottom a free Negro receives his pay from a cashier. Two smaller scenes flank Lincoln's portrait. In one a mounted overseer flogs a black field slave (left); in the other a foreman politely greets Negro cotton-field workers. Physical description: 1 print on wove paper : wood engraving printed in black and rose ; image 36 x 52.1 cm.

Notes: Exhibited: "The Civil Rights Act of 1964 : A Long Struggle for Freedom" at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., June 2014 - June 2015.; Th. Nast ; King & Baird, printers, 607 Sansom Street, Philadelphia.; Title from item.; "Entered ... 1865, by J.W. Umpehent ... Pennsylvania."; Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1865-3.; Forms part of: Popular graphic art print filing series (Library of Congress).