Gately & Britton, (limited,) largest installment house in Reading, no. 940 Penn Street [graphic].

Gately & Britton, (limited,) largest installment house in Reading, no. 940 Penn Street [graphic].

African American boys -- Caricatures and cartoons.

Eating & drinking.

Home furnishings stores -- Pennsylvania -- Reading.

Racism in popular culture.

Watermelons.

Afro-Americana.

Racist trade card promoting Gately & Britton’s home furnishing store in Reading, Pa. and depicting a caricature of an African American boy sitting against a fence post eating a large slice of watermelon. Shows the boy squatting on his toes and smiling at the viewer as he holds a piece of watermelon in both hands. He has taken the melon out of a field of watermelon plants surrounded by a barbed wire fence. He is attired in a torn straw hat, blue shorts with a patch, and only the partial sleeves of a red and white striped shirt. The rest of the shirt has ripped and hangs from the barbed wire in the left. On the ground in the left is the watermelon with a slice cut from it with the handle of a knife protuding out of it. In the right is a small, white and brown dog. Edward Gately and G.M. Britton established a home furnishings store called Gately & Britton at 940 Penn Street, Reading, Pa. in 1887. The business continued operating into the 20th century.

Library Company of Philadelphia

[Reading, Pa.] : Charles Brown, 1887.

1 print : chromolithograph ; sheet 13 x 8 cm (5 x 3 in.)

Goldman Trade Card Collection - Gately [P.2017.95.68]