Description
In the first two weeks of May 1862, the Army of the Potomac slowly progressed upriver toward Richmond and took Yorktown, Williamsburg and Norfolk. The famous ironclad Confederate ship the Merrimac was scuttled on May 11, a dramatic moment for both sides. By the end of the month, 100,000 Union troops under McClellan had reached the outskirts of Richmond. Leading the Confederate forces in Richmond was Robert E. Lee, who had yet to prove his competence in the eyes of many southerners. An excited northern public expected victory. However, Lee emerged as a leader to be reckoned with, when he successfully repelled the Army of the Potomac during the Seven Days Battles. The Union withdrew to Harrison’s Landing, and the “Seven Days rapidly took on the aura of an unequivocal Confederate triumph” (Gallagher).
The publication credits on this lithograph list three co-publishers: Kellogg, a prolific printer of the period much in the same genre as Currier and Ives; Phelps & Watson, a prolific New York map publisher that had connections with Kellogg; and F.P. Whiting, with an address given as 87 Fulton Street, which is where Kellogg ran a New York office until around 1860. The Whitings and the Kelloggs evidently issued a number of prints together, including a portrait of Abraham Lincoln when he was running for president. The Indiana Historical Society has a related patriotic print from the Civil War era portraying the Union as an allegorical bird, The Eagle’s Nest (1861), co-published by George Whiting, 87 Fulton Street, with Kellogg.
The Kelloggs were lithographers active in Hartford, Connecticut, New York City and Buffalo, New York. They produced an immense number of black-and-white and hand-colored lithographs during the 19th century, second only to their contemporaries and competitors Currier & Ives. The Connecticut Historical Society has almost 1,000 lithographs by the Kelloggs in their collection, including sentimental scenes, views of towns and buildings, portraits and historical scenes such as Civil War battles.
The Kellogg firm was founded by Daniel Wright Kellogg (1807-1874), who pioneered publishing inexpensive and popular lithographs in the United States under the name D.W. Kellogg & Co. in Hartford about 1833. Around 1843. he was joined by his brothers Edmund Burke Kellogg (1809-1872) and Elijah Chapman Kellogg (1811-1881), who began trading as E.B. and E.C. Kellogg. Edmund had a background as a journalist and editor and Elijah was trained as an engraver; he also was one of the first in the U.S. to breed trout artificially and wrote treatises on fish culture. Their firm was headquartered at 136 Main Street in Hartford until 1852. The Kelloggs also had offices in New York with Horace Thayer in (1846-47), J.G. Comstock (1849-52), and thereafter without partners until about 1860. Charles E. Kellogg, son of E.B., joined the business in 1860. In 1871, William Henry Bulkeley joined the firm and undertook a major reorganization of the business into a successful printing house called Kellogg & Bulkeley, specializing in colorful chromolithographs. The firm later merged with Case, Lockwood & Brainard to form Connecticut Printers in 1947.
The names of Frank P. Whiting and his father George Whiting also appear in the credits of some Kellogg prints. George Whiting became the Kelloggs’ principal New York agent in 1848 and worked for them until they closed their New York office in 1860. His name, abbreviated “G. Whiting,” appeared on Kellogg prints until 1862, when Whiting died and his son, Frank P. Whiting, took over as the Kelloggs’ co-publisher and distributor. Historian Nancy Finlay notes that the imprint “F.P. Whiting” appears on Kellogg prints issued between 1862 and 1866, which helps date those prints to that period (Finlay, p. 6).
Full publication information: Kellogg, 245 Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut; Phelps & Watson, 18 Beekman Street, New York; F.P. Whiting, 87 Fulton Street, New York.
Condition: Generally very good, recently professionally cleaned and deacidified, with minor remaining, toning and wear.
References:
“Back to the Source: 19th century base-ball texts and guides.” Vintage Base Ball Association. http://www.vbba.org/ed-interp/backtothesource.html (28 June 2006).
“Connecticut’s Currier & Ives: Lithographs by the Kellogg Brothers.” Connecticut Historical Society. 2002. http://www.chs.org/graphcoll/kelloggprint.htm (9 June 2004).
“Eagle’s Nest.” Indiana Historical Society Digital Images Collection. 2003. http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/P0406&CISOPTR=524&REC=3 (28 June 2006).
Finlay, Nancy (ed.) and Kate Steinway. Picturing Victorian America: Prints by the Kellogg Brothers of Hartford, Connecticut, 1830-1880. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Historical Society, 2010.
Finlay, Nancy. “Some Evidence for the Sale and Distribution of Kellogg Prints.” Ninth Annual Conference of the Program in Early American Economy and Society, Philadelphia, PA. 25 October 2010. p. 6. Online at http://www.librarycompany.org/Economics/2010Conference/papers/PEAES-VCP%20–%2010%20conf%20Finlay%20paper.pdf (11 September 2017).
Gallagher, Gary W. The Richmond Campaign of 1862 The Peninsula and the Seven Days. University of North Carolina Press: 2000. Chapter 1 online at: University of North Carolina Press. 2000. http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/gallagher_richmond.html (28 June 2006).
“Kellogg Prints: Kellogg and Bulkeley.” Connecticut Historical Society. 2002. http://www.chs.org/graphcoll/kelloggprint4.htm (9 June 2004).
Peters, Harry T. America on Stone. U.S.: Doubleday, Doran, 1931. pp. 242-247.
“Report for 2001-2002.” Connecticut Historical Society. 2002. p. 13. Online at: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:YwC3tSdReWIJ:www.chs.org/anreport.pdf+Forward+March+Old+hens+kellogg&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 (28 June 2006).
