1874 Molly Maguires · Texas Cattle Raid · Coal Strike — Harper's Weekly Jan 31

1874 Molly Maguires · Texas Cattle Raid · Coal Strike — Harper's Weekly Jan 31

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🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · January 31, 1874
Complete Issue + Supplement Pages · New York

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A cattle raid on the Texas border. Coal for the poor in a brutal winter. Immigrants crossing the Atlantic from Liverpool. And a confrontation with the Molly Maguires — the secret Irish-American organization whose shadow over the Pennsylvania coal fields was the most explosive labor story in America. The supplement carries a Paris Gallery painting, illustrated chapters of Trollope's Phineas Redux, and Bulwer-Lytton's The Parisians. This issue covers the fault lines of Gilded Age America.

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🖼️ THE MAIN ISSUE
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⛏️ FULL PAGE — "THE STRIKE IN THE COAL MINES — MEETING THE MOLLY McGuire MEN"
The crown jewel of the issue. The Molly Maguires were a secret Irish-American fraternal organization embedded in the anthracite coal mining communities of eastern Pennsylvania — accused of murder, intimidation, arson, and terrorism during the bitter labor wars of the 1870s. By January 1874, Pinkerton detective James McParlan had already been operating undercover among them for months; their leaders would eventually be arrested, tried, and hanged in 1877. Harper's was covering the story at exactly the moment the tension was highest and the story was most alive. This full-page illustration of a meeting between miners and Molly Maguire men is a primary document of one of the most dramatic episodes in American labor history. For Irish-American history collectors, labor movement historians, Pennsylvania coal country enthusiasts, and anyone fascinated by the dark and complicated story of working-class organizing in Gilded Age America — this page is irreplaceable.

🐄 FULL PAGE — "CATTLE RAID ON THE TEXAS BORDER"
Displayable on its own. Cattle raids along the Texas-Mexico border were a recurring crisis in the 1870s — a combination of banditry, cross-border conflict, and the lawless frontier between two nations that had recently been at war. This full-page illustration captures the drama and violence of that borderland, rendered in Harper's finest engraving. For Texas history collectors, Western Americana enthusiasts, and border history buffs.

🌊 FULL PAGE — "LIFE ON THE OCEAN — FROM LIVERPOOL TO NEW YORK" — TWO PRINTS
Two illustrations of the transatlantic immigrant crossing — Liverpool to New York, steerage and deck, the journey that millions of Irish, British, and European immigrants made during this era. A companion piece to the Molly Maguires page: these are the same people, one generation earlier, arriving on American shores.

🪨 FULL PAGE — "HARD COAL FOR THE POOR"
The coal strikes of 1873–74 meant genuine hardship for working-class urban families through the winter. This full page documents the charitable distribution of coal to the poor — a direct visual counterpart to the Molly Maguires page. Together they tell the full story: why the strikes happened, what the stakes were, who was suffering.

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📄 THE SUPPLEMENT PAGES
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🖼️ "THE IMAGE-SELLER" — FROM A PAINTING EXHIBITED AT THE PARIS GALLERY, LONDON
A full-page supplement illustration from a painting shown at the Paris Gallery in London — a richly detailed workshop or studio interior, figures among hanging garments, tools, and objects, the light falling in dramatic shafts. The engraving quality is exceptional. Frame-worthy as a standalone work of Victorian art illustration.

📚 "PHINEAS REDUX" BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE — CHAPTER XXI WITH ILLUSTRATION
Another illustrated chapter of Trollope's great political novel in its original American serialized form. The illustration shows two figures in a dramatic outdoor moor scene — intense, atmospheric, and beautifully rendered.

📚 "A PIECE OF THE PAST" — WITH ILLUSTRATION
A supplement story with a domestic interior illustration — a figure in Victorian dress in a doorway, the detail of the engraving catching the light.

📚 "THE PARISIANS" BY EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON — BOOK TWELVE, CONTINUATION
Further chapters of Bulwer-Lytton's final novel, serialized here in its original American printing.

📰 ADDITIONAL SUPPLEMENT FICTION
· "The Two Inquests" · "Making the Best of It"
· "A Vie in the Little" · "The Country Doctor"
A dense and rich literary supplement.

🏪 PERIOD ADVERTISEMENTS
· Robinson Chase & Co. — Bankers, Estate and Trust Funds
· Geo. A. Prince & Co. — 53,000 Organs & Melodeons
· Herring's Safes · Devoe's Brilliant Oil
· Travellers Insurance Company
· Harper & Brothers — Three Important Books of the Season
· Gail Hamilton — "Twelve Miles from a Lemon" (book advertisement)
· "Ladies' Memories of Men and Some Women" — book ad
· No Frog, No Horse — Magic Inkstand
· $500 Reward — Builders notice

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📋 CONDITION
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Intake photographs of every page — including all supplement pages — are included in this listing. Some supplement pages show moisture staining; please review all images carefully. Questions are very welcome, and I'm happy to photograph any specific page or detail on request.

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📌 DETAILS
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Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ··············· January 31, 1874
City ··············· New York
Pages ·············· Complete · 16 pages + Supplement
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper

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🔍 SEO TAGS
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