Creating a Sensation --The "Bully Boy" on a Bicycle

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.

This print shows a Black (African American) youth on a penny-farthing bicycle (i.e. a bicycle with a very tall front wheel, and a much shorter back wheel) cycling from right to left; he wears a red cap, a red jersey-like shirt, yellow pants, striped socks and large brown shoes.The cyclist ("Bully Boy") is unaware that he has just knocked down a Black workman (wearing overalls) who had been pushing a wooden wheelbarrow. The mishap has caused the workman to land on his rear end with a bucket of white paint upside down on his head, his supplies and brushes scattered about him, and his toppled wheelbarrow separated from its front wheel. In the background, a rider-less mule-- alarmed by the accident --races away after tossing its rider, a Black woman, who helplessly dangles from a tree branch. The title is imprinted in the bottom margin.



Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored 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 other subjects, many of which were made into lithographs published by Currier & Ives.