1896 Jamaica Banana Cultivation Centerfold, Cleveland Centennial McKinley Jul 25

🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · July 25, 1896
Complete Issue · New York

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A varied and visually rich Gilded Age issue — a double-page centerfold of banana cultivation in Jamaica, Cleveland Ohio's centennial celebration, the growth of Manhattan's Upper West Side, McKinley campaigning as "Farmer McKinley," the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, and the Cuban insurrection. Strong content for Caribbean history collectors, Ohio history enthusiasts, and New York City development buffs.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🍌 BANANA CULTIVATION IN JAMAICA
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🍌 DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD — "BANANA CULTIVATION ON THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA"
A magnificent double-page centerfold documenting banana cultivation in Jamaica — published at a pivotal moment in the history of the banana trade. In the 1890s Jamaica was one of the primary sources of bananas for the American market, and the banana was in the process of transforming from an exotic luxury into an everyday American staple. The United Fruit Company — which would come to dominate Caribbean agriculture and politics — was founded just two years after this issue in 1899, making this centerfold a primary document of the banana trade at the exact moment of its transformation into one of the great American commercial empires. The documentary shows the cultivation, harvesting, and transport of bananas across the Jamaican landscape — a vivid piece of Jamaican agricultural history, Caribbean colonial economy, and the birth of the modern global fruit trade. A beautiful, displayable, and very frameable piece of tropical agricultural history.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏙️ CLEVELAND, OHIO — CENTENNIAL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🎉 FULL PAGE — "THE FOREST CITY'S CENTENNIAL — SCENES IN CLEVELAND, OHIO"
A full-page documentary of Cleveland, Ohio's centennial celebration — commemorating the founding of the city by General Moses Cleaveland in 1796. In 1896 Cleveland was one of the great industrial cities of America, its economy powered by steel, oil refining, and manufacturing, its lakefront harbor among the busiest on the Great Lakes. A significant piece of Ohio and Great Lakes urban history at the height of the Gilded Age.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌆 NEW YORK'S UPPER WEST SIDE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🏙️ TWO PAGES — "THE GROWTH OF THE UPPER WEST SIDE OF NEW YORK" — SEVERAL ILLUSTRATIONS
Several illustrations documenting the explosive residential development of Manhattan's Upper West Side — published as the neighborhood was being transformed by the construction of the Dakota Building (1884), the expansion of Riverside Drive, and the great apartment houses that were making the Upper West Side one of the most desirable addresses in the city. A vivid primary document of New York City's northward expansion and the birth of one of Manhattan's most beloved neighborhoods. A significant piece of New York City architectural and real estate history.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🖼️ INSIDE THE ISSUE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🌾 FULL FRONT PAGE — "FARMER McKINLEY TAKES OFF HIS COAT"
A full front-page illustration of William McKinley as "Farmer McKinley" — the campaign image designed by Mark Hanna to present the Republican candidate as a man of the people, rolling up his sleeves and getting to work. The "front porch campaign" imagery of McKinley as an accessible, hardworking American was one of the great political marketing innovations of the 1896 election. A significant piece of presidential campaign history.

🎖️ FULL PAGE — "THE ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY OF MASSACHUSETTS, FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON"
A full-page illustration of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company — the oldest military organization in the Western Hemisphere, founded in 1638, at Faneuil Hall in Boston. A significant piece of American military tradition and Boston history.

🇨🇺 FULL PAGE — "THE CUBAN INSURRECTION"
A full-page illustration of the Cuban War of Independence — continuing Harper's Weekly's coverage of the conflict that would draw America into war with Spain in 1898.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📋 CONDITION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I photograph every page of every issue so you can inspect the condition closely before purchasing. Please review all images carefully and don't hesitate to ask any questions — I'm happy to provide additional detail or close-up shots of any page, illustration, or area of concern before you buy.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 DETAILS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ··············· July 25, 1896
City ··············· New York
Format ············· Complete issue

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

• Stored in an acid-free protective bag and flat-shipped in a padded envelope with heavy cardboard reinforcement
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔍 SEO TAGS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jamaica banana cultivation antique, banana cultivation Jamaica centerfold, Jamaica banana trade antique, Caribbean banana antique, United Fruit Company precursor, banana Jamaica Victorian antique, tropical agriculture antique, Jamaica colonial economy antique, banana trade history antique, Cleveland centennial antique, Forest City centennial antique, Cleveland Ohio 1896 antique, Moses Cleaveland centennial, Great Lakes city antique, Upper West Side growth antique, Manhattan Upper West Side, New York development antique, Riverside Drive antique, McKinley farmer coat antique, McKinley campaign antique, front porch campaign antique, Ancient Honorable Artillery, Boston Faneuil Hall antique, Cuban insurrection antique, Harper's Weekly 1896, antique newspaper 1896, Gilded Age newspaper, antique illustration, framing quality print, Jamaica history collector, Cleveland history collector, New York history collector, history lover gift, rare newspaper collectible, museum quality ephemera