Hamilton Prints (Textile Label)

Boston and New York: Joy, Langdon & Co, 1873. Very good. Textile product label (170 x 135). Engraved script below imprint cropped affecting several words, one short tear, corner chip, light soil. Our example appears to have actually been used for its original purchase, namely pasted on fabric as there is still glue residue on the verso, and numbering in pencil and also red ink on the verso. The number of yards of the fabric is recorded in contemporary ink: "48.2" Wonderfully gloomy factory scene rendered at the height of the American Industrial Revolution. The engraving depicts the Boston manufacturing plant of Joy, Langdon & Co., located at 76 Chauncey Street. Here the viewer is confronted by a bleak "no exit" view, with towering factories on both sides bisected by train tracks leading inexorably towards a belching smoke stack; on the left is an almost ecclesiastical looking building topped with a bell tower. The scene is populated with a total of seven men in suits and top-hats; curiously, the individual at the far right is nearly twice the size as the others. Only one other copy of this label appears to be known, namely the example at the Historic New England Museum.