A Darktown Slide: "Golly! Am der an Erfquake?"

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 three Black (African American) roller skaters who have just collided in a skating rink. They are shocked to find themselves piled on top of each other with their elegant clothes in disarray. On the bottom, facing the viewer is a youth (in a blue jacket) lying with his stomach on the floor; he stares upward with his mouth agape, and his arms splayed. A woman, garbed in a red patterned pinafore over a blue dress, lies prone cross-ways on top of the youth; her roller-skated feet are at the left, while her head (adorned with a red hat trimmed with blue feathers) is at the right. A man--dressed in a white-tailed jacket (now with a torn left sleeve), blue pants, red vest and a top hat (now with a broken brim)-- has landed seated on top of the woman with his legs and arms outstretched. In the background, there are other skaters (at right) and a few seated spectators (at left) in the elegant, white wood interior of a rink (with coved ceiling and large paned windows on the two visible walls). The title and caption are imprinted in the bottom margin.

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.