Bulldozed!!

The late nineteenth-century Darktown prints by Currier & Ives depict racist stereotypes that are offensive and disturbing. The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves such works to shed light on their historical context and to enable the study and evaluation of racism.

In this scene after an unlucky charging encounter with a bull (left), the mighty bovine watches as a donkey (lower center) and its Black (African-American) rider (lower right) tumble to the ground upside down in front of a haystack. The man, whose open mouth and frightened eyes reveal his alarm, stretches out his arms to brace his landing; the holey soles of his shoes are visible at the end of his upturned legs.The man's tattered umbrella flies in the air (far right). Sketchily indicated in the background, there is a horse-drawn buggy on a rural road.



Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life and its history. People eagerly acquired such lithographs featuring picturesque scenery, rural and city views, ships, railroads, portraits, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. As the firm expanded, Nathaniel included his younger brother Charles in the business. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law) was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907. The artist of this print is Thomas Worth, a prolific nineteenth-century illustrator who excelled at drawing horses and caricatured subjects, many of which were made into lithographs published by Currier & Ives.