This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/22/2019
Stetson’s Big Double Uncle Tom’s Cabin Co. Newport, Ky.: Donaldson Litho, ca. 1900s. Color lithograph depicts an Uncle Tom character speaking to a chicken, with stereotypical dialogue printed in the image. Framed, overall size 30 x 20”. Diagonal vertical fold through image; scattered marginal creases. B+. The chicken’s response to Tom references the composition “All Coons Look Alike to Me” (1896), by Ernest Hogan (1865-1909), a major innovator of ragtime music and the first black producer and performer of a Broadway show. The song concerns a woman who leaves her husband for a man who looks like her husband but, unlike him, “spends his money free.” This poster is an example of the demeaning imagery which accompanied sheet music and posters featuring Hogan’s composition, as well as the flood of derivative “coon songs” that followed it.