[Racist Caricatures] I'm Granpa at Last, eh? [Set of five illustrated cabinet cards]

[Chicago: John McGreer, Copyright 1882.] Five mounted albumen photographs, numbered 1-5 within image. Oblong; mounts 4¼ x 6½ inches; images 4 x 5¼ inches. Light soiling in margins; first mount and photo toned; very good.

Complete set of five photographic reproductions from the Cartoon Printing Co. published by Chicago cartoonist John McGreer, based on Solomon Eytinge's racist African American caricatures from his "Blackville" series published by Harper's Weekly.

The images show a stereotypical caricature of a Black midwife slowly revealing to an alarmed gentleman that he has become a grandfather not once but five times over. The old man's developing reaction supplies the humor-he goes from wistfully pleased until he finally exclaims "F-I-V-E !!! 'See that my grave's kept green'" and faints dead away.

"John McGreer (1833-1905) was a dime museum painter, landscape artist, and cartoonist. He worked in Chicago after 1870 and was a partner in the novelty and satire printing firm Cartoon Printing Co., later Cartoon Publishing Co., by the early 1880s. In 1897, he patented statuettes of African American caricatures for use as cardholders. He resided in New York and was noted as a landscape artist at the time of his death in 1908." (Library Company of Philadelphia)

[Photographic reproductions of the Cartoon Printing Co. series after the 1878 Harper's Weekly "Blackville" series "The Twins"] [graphic]/ McGreer. | Library Company of Philadelphia Digital Collections Library Company of Philadelphia