The Darktown Othello: "I mashed her on de dangers I had passed (drivin' an army muell)."

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 caricatures Black (African American) men, parodies William Shakespeare's play "Othello," and alludes to America's Civil War. At left, a Black man (Othello)--dressed in a red shirt, tattered blue Union army jacket and pants, and black boots-- sits on a porch railing (besides his Union army cap) gesturing with his right arm over his head, as his left leg is slung over the top rungs of a teetering chair so his foot rests on the broken straw seat. He is adressing a white couple seated at the right: a blond woman/Desdemona (her hair in an updo, wears a blue short-sleeved bodice top and a long yellow skirt) leans backward towards the older Uncle Sam-like man lounging diagonally on a wooden bench. The man --wearing a white top hat, blue jacket and vest, and white pants-- rests his chin on his right hand (which also holds a corn cob pipe), as his elbow is perched on the bench armrest; his left arm is slung over the back of the bench, yet one can see that his left hand holding a sheet of paper (a broadside or proclamation). Above the couple, two shirts are drying on a clothes line next to a hanging tin can "lantern" containing a burnt out candle. At the lower center, a banjo sits on the blue carpet. At far left, the Black man's blue military coat hangs from the porch rail behind a stool with a jug on it; a red/white striped satchel (evoking the United States flag) sits beneath the stool. In the background, two black men fish from a boat on a lake. On the shore beyond is a cabin and a distant mountain range. The title and the caption (for Othello's remarks) are imprinted beneath the image.

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.