Description

Trade card employing the African American "Lime Kiln Club" caricatures originally devised by Charles Bertrand Lewis (i.e., M. Quad) in the Detroit Free Press. Depicts the Lime Kiln club at Paradise Hall. "Bro. Gardner" stands in front of the club, holding a box of Dixon's stove polish in one hand and a gavel in the other. He stands next to a table on which a pitcher and stovepipe hat rest and that is adorned with a sign reading "Dixon's Carburet of Iron Stove Polish." Most of the 12 members stand in a corner, next to a heating stove, and underneath an upside down horse shoe and a framed placard reading "Beautify Your homes," while the seated "Trustee Pullback" (holding a scrub brush) and "Layback Jones" inspect a box of the stove polish. The members wear bright colored and/or striped jackets and pants. "Bro. Gardner" also wears a large yellow flower on his lapel, and "Bro. Shindig" spats on his shoes. Scene also shows a framed copy of the "Rules of the Lime Kiln Club" adorning the wall behind Gardner and numbers above each figure of the club keyed to names on verso. The Jos. Dixon Crucible Co., established by Joseph Dixon in Salem, Mass. in 1827, produced graphite pencils, crucibles and stove polish, and relocated to Jersey City, N.J. in 1847. In 1868, the firm name changed from Joseph Dixon & Co. to the Jos. Dixon Crucible Co and in 1870 the firm won a trademark case against a Philadelphia...

Record Contributed By

The Library Company of Philadelphia

Record Harvested From

PA Digital