1874 Paris Morgue · Colorado Gold Mining · Nast Grant — Harper's Weekly Jul 18

1874 Paris Morgue · Colorado Gold Mining · Nast Grant — Harper's Weekly Jul 18

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🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · July 18, 1874
Complete Issue + Supplement Pages · New York

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Thomas Nast on the front page, gently pushing back on Grant's cronyism. The Paris Morgue — that extraordinary and macabre Victorian public institution — across a full page. Colorado gold and silver mining. Two children on a swing in summer sunshine. Old settlers gathering in memory of a vanished frontier. And a supplement with a dignified portrait of an African American young man, a ballad of the deserter, and a luminous Royal Academy garden scene of women at rest. This is July 18, 1874.

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🖼️ THE MAIN ISSUE
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🎨 FRONT PAGE — THOMAS NAST: "DON'T LET US HAVE ANY MORE OF THIS NONSENSE. IT IS A GOOD TRAIT TO STAND BY ONE'S FRIENDS; BUT --"
Full front page — Nast with one of his most nuanced treatments of Ulysses Grant. Nast had been Grant's fiercest defender for years; this cartoon acknowledges Grant's loyalty to his friends as a "good trait" while the conspicuous "But --" signals that even Nast has limits with Grant's cronyism and the scandals surrounding his administration. The tension between loyalty and principle, rendered in Nast's characteristic moral clarity, makes this cartoon particularly revealing. A Nast political cartoon on the front page, plus a second Nast cartoon on the back page, makes this a double-Nast issue.

⛏️ HALF PAGE — "GOLD & SILVER MINING, COLORADO"
The Colorado mining boom in mid-decade — silver and gold coming out of the Rockies at a rate that was transforming the territory and drawing thousands of miners, merchants, and speculators. This half-page illustration documents the mining operations: the equipment, the terrain, the human labor of extracting precious metal from mountain rock. For Colorado history collectors, mining history enthusiasts, and Western Americana buffs.

💀 FULL PAGE — "THE MORGUE AT PARIS"
One of the most haunting and distinctive illustrations in this run of Harper's. The Paris Morgue was a public institution on the Île de la Cité — a place where unidentified bodies recovered from the Seine and the streets of Paris were displayed behind glass windows, available for anyone to view in hopes of identification. It attracted millions of visitors annually, functioning as a grim tourist attraction as much as a civic service. Dickens wrote about it. Zola wrote about it. Victor Hugo referenced it in Les Misérables. This full-page illustration shows the Morgue's interior — the marble slabs, the glass partitions, the assembled viewers. For Paris history collectors, Victorian curiosity history enthusiasts, French history buffs, and anyone fascinated by the darker institutions of the 19th-century city.

🌞 FULL PAGE — "SUNSHINE"
Two youngsters on a swing in summer light — the pure joy of childhood captured in Harper's warm domestic mode. A tonal contrast to the Morgue page that shows the range of what a single issue could contain.

🤝 FULL PAGE — "MEETING OF OLD SETTLERS"
A pioneer settlers' reunion — men and women who had come West in the earlier days, now gathered to remember a frontier that was already becoming history. By 1874, the homesteading generation of the 1840s and 1850s was aging, and these "old settler" meetings were a widespread institution of Gilded Age nostalgia for the pioneer experience.

❄️ THREE-QUARTER PAGE — "OUT IN THE COLD"
A figure left out in the cold — political allegory rendered in Harper's characteristic visual shorthand, likely connected to the Grant cronyism theme of the front page.

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📄 THE SUPPLEMENT PAGES
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✊ FULL PAGE — PORTRAIT OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN YOUNG MAN
The supplement's most historically significant page — a large, beautifully rendered portrait of an African American youth or young man in formal Victorian dress, depicted with dignity and care. The accompanying text includes references to Africa and biographical context. In the tradition of this run of Harper's Weekly — which has consistently treated Black subjects with more depth and humanity than most publications of its era — this portrait is a primary document of African American representation in the illustrated press of the Reconstruction era. For Black history collectors, African American portraiture researchers, and Reconstruction era historians.

📜 "THE DESERTER" — ILLUSTRATION AND NARRATIVE POEM
A dramatic full-page supplement illustration depicting a military scene — a deserter confronted or apprehended, a woman (likely his mother) present, soldiers in attendance — accompanied by a full narrative ballad poem below. The poem tells the story of a young soldier who deserted, his family's shame and sorrow, and the consequences. Civil War veterans and their families would have read this poem with particular feeling in 1874. For military history collectors, Civil War poetry researchers, and Victorian ballad history enthusiasts.

🌸 "FAIR, QUIET AND SWEET REST" — FROM A PAINTING BY T. ELMORE, ROYAL ACADEMY, LONDON
A large, luminous supplement illustration from a painting exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London the previous year — T. Elmore's "Fair, Quiet and Sweet Rest." The image shows multiple women in white summer dresses in a romantic garden or woodland setting, some resting among flowers and foliage, the light falling through the trees. The engraving quality is exceptional, capturing the Pre-Raphaelite-influenced atmosphere of the original painting. For Victorian art history collectors, Royal Academy painting enthusiasts, Pre-Raphaelite art admirers, and women's Victorian art researchers — this supplement page is a genuine piece of art history.

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📋 PERIOD ADVERTISEMENTS
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· Knabe Grand, Square & Upright Pianos
· Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga Springs — Opened at Popular Prices (Breslin, Purcell & Co.)
· Asbestos Roofing
· Wood Brothers Co. · Union Adams & Co. — Fine Shirts, Collars, Cuffs, Drawers (637 Broadway)
· Bradley Pray & Co. — Road Carriages and Wagons, Manufacturers (558 Broadway)
· Goodenough Horse-Shop
· Twines and Netting
· Harper & Brothers — "Some Fresh and Interesting Summer Books":
· Young Woodsman · Adventures in the New World
· Life in the Woods · The Land of the Nile
· Abyssinia and Mamaia — Africa travel books
· Other summer titles

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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 tape residue from previous storage; 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 ··············· July 18, 1874
City ··············· New York
Pages ·············· Complete · 16 pages + Supplement
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper

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