Op de website sonofthesouth.net ontdekte ik uniek historisch materiaal over de Amerikaanse Burgeroorlog. Alle uitgaven van het legendarische Harper’s Weekly uit de jaren 1861-1865 zijn hier te bekijken met afbeeldingen in hoge resolutie en alle tekst in HTML gecodeerd. Dat is nog eens archiveren! Je kunt hier eindeloos teksten scannen en fraaie gravures downloaden. Harper’s Weekly hield een groot aantal illustratoren (waaronder Winslow Homer) en graveurs aan het werk. In de 19e eeuw was het nog niet mogelijk om foto’s met een halftoonraster af te drukken en werden in kranten gravures gebruikt als illustratie. Vaak diende een foto als uitgangspunt voor een gravure.
Harper’s Weekly (1857-1916)
Harper & Brothers publishing was started in 1825 by James, John, Fletcher and Wesley Harper. Following the successful example of the Illustrated London News, Fletcher began publishing Harper’s Monthly in 1850. The publication was more intent on publishing established authors such as Dickens and Thackeray, but was a great enough success to begin publishing the Harper’s Weekly in 1857. By 1860 the Weekly’s circulation had reached 200,000. Illustrations were an important part of the Weekly’s content, and it developed a reputation for employing some of the most renowned illustrators, notably Winslow Homer, Granville Perkins and Livingston Hopkins. Among its recurring features were the political cartoons of Thomas Nast who was recruited in 1862 and would remain with the Weekly for more than 20 years. Nast was a feared caricaturist, considered by some the father of American political cartooning. He was the originator of the use of animals to represent the political parties the Democrats’ donkey and the Republicans’ elephant-‚ well as the familiar character of Santa Claus. So as not to upset its wide readership in the South, Harper’s took a moderate editorial position on the issue of slavery. For this it was called by the more hawkish publications “Harper’s Weakly.“ The Weekly supported the Stephen A. Douglas presidential campaign against Abraham Lincoln, but as the American Civil War broke out, Lincoln and the Union received full and loyal support of the publication. Arguably, some of the most important articles and illustrations came from the Weekly’s reporting on the war. Besides renderings by Homer and Nast, Harpers also published illustrations by Theodore R. Davis, Henry Mosler, and the brothers Alfred Waud and William Waud. ( Bron: en.wikipedia.org )
sonofthesouth.net | harpers archive 1850-2010 | civilwarphotos.net
