Weekly Yankee
“An Hour in Washington Market” in the Weekly Yankee, August 30, 1848, p. 4,
Weekly Yankee—also pub by Wms Brothers, 4 cents/$2 yr. Also an elab frontispiece, backwoodsman the central vignette, mostly fiction, similar layout, Henry L Williams editor
First issue is Nov 20, 1847
p. 3 Refers to a monument in Hamilton square, ok with it being uptown, downtown too crowded; Parker and Levy 300 Broadway antique Italian image prodigal Son 1300 “done to the life” lost nothing in expression, and all that sort of thing.
Yankee Letter: Patience in NY, written in awful dialect, she visits NY, taken to see a greak slave all done in chalk, as white as snow, standing on a kind of stump and a boy kept turning it around to see sides and hind part. No clothes on, she says nasty critters ought to be ashamed to have a fair sex stuck up there that way, don’t think the thing is so dreadful pretty after all, wouldn’t like to be shaped like that. She likes to see a gal tall and slim, and shaped all the way down just alike and just as thick in one place as another because it si more natural, a rail post thicker and thinner wouldn’t be natural.
The man who mad this greak slave is Hiram Ketcham, one of the folks they call the naytives, no wonder he made such a pesky lookin thing. Sister Patience wouldn’t stand up to be looked at that way. Signed Ajax Rounds. In another paragraph note that Powers statues of Ethan Allen and Thomas Crittenden will be worth $20,000.
Big ad for Bro Jon. Excited re Italy. Dec 18 Flagg’s Death of Col Rahl at Trenton for Potts of Trenton, fr Newark advertiser, p. 4 bio anecdote of Correggio not getting his full pay
1848
January
Wms also publishes News of the World. Bit on Jefferson’s neglected monument fr NY Observer.
February
Admires odd-fellows. 19 why does one derive more pleas fr looking at the pic of a lscape than fr the lscape itself? More pleased with things, the more they are removed fr reality? P. 3 26 Henry Wm Herbert story. Benton began quoting Humboldt pretty extensively, another proves he didn’t know anything abt KY grass. P. 3.
March
Dr Thiers starting new paper, The Original. Happy re French Republic, can’t doubt they can govern themselves
April 15 Trinity church shld give up its property, need land reform in TX et al so a few don’t monopolize all the acreage. Change of editors at Courier des Etats, Gailliardet brilliant, wish Arpin luck. Don’t intervene in Yucatan. Leave slavery alone in south.
Mostly only publishing ads. May. June 17 start doing engr, Orr. P. 4 Fine Arts, satire of a provincial Acad exhib from Albany Knickerbocker. Critical of Peabody, London corresp of Trib, for being anti-semitic, not liberal, not sep church and state
July 15 the info changes: now pub A Cunningham, 47 Ann St, $1.50 per yr, Devoted to Lit, Science, the Fine and Useful Arts, Poitics, Ag, commerce and genl intellig.
Wms Bros sold to E. Adlam. Notices a Literary American pub and ed by GP Quackenbos, along lines of Lit World. Grk Slave back on exhib, enthus; Chas Deas ill says Express. Has a housewife’s dept. July 22 Excerpts spirit of the Times and the Day Book, critical of latter’s bitterness. July 29 engr of Scene in Highlands, a pictque lscape. Anecdote of Irish ptr Nathl Grogan.
Aug 19 view of Genoa engr. Prefer govt rrd to Whitney’s. Tales of a Port Ptr. Aug 26 engr of a sculpture of Aenaes? Spirit of the Age is revolution. Approves penny peddlers.
Sept Notices Annual Fair, has Sins and Vices, NY by night, by one of the b’hoys. BLB does Drama and Fine Arts reviews. Support Taylor. Like H Grattan (a scenes in NY author) and T Meighan’s new the Sunday Age. Likes Ned Buntline. Sept 30 don’t think the engr portraits in Atlas are v flattering. Chanfrau’s mysteries and miseries at the Natl doing extremely well, but it’s trashy, need better done low life.
October 14 The portrait, p. 1 28 series NY in Chunks, Bob Boblink. Anecdote of West.
Nov 4 disapproves of local literature, squalid misery not wholesome. Nov 11 have a prejudice agst the Free Soil party. Notices the Art Union, shld subscribe, many gems in the coll, shall envy those who get them, plus series of Voyage of Life one of greatest of modern pencil.Nov 18 analyzes the various editors styles, says Grecian mantle falls on free soilism or Brandreth’s pills in Evening Post; Roman toga wraps Gen Taylor, Jervis candy in C&E, The Sun is snobbish, Daybook pugnacious, sermoning style of Comm Advert and J of Commerce, isms of Trib. Long puff of Delaroche’s great pic of Napoleon, painted his genius. Drops Fine Arts from Drama header. Nov 25 happy with Taylors victory. Now a Lady’s Portfolio, not housewife.
December
Reviews Lippard, gives him some credit. Louis Nap will end the republic. 23 engr of cottage archit.
1849
January. Approves of greeley reforming mileage. February 3 v brief notice of David Hale’s funeral.
March Seems to have stopped the engravings. Has published by A Skillman on masthead now and Oliver B Bunce (a fiction writer) is editor—change prob happened earlier. 10 liked Pres Polk, notes students at NAD gift of silver to Curator. 17 praises newspaper lit. 24 p. 2 mocks Sunday laws; The Art Union rooms opened to public, some 100 new ptgs, crowded. Can’t pass over in silence attempts of certain cliques, emanating fr the Academy of Design, who have endeavored to injure, and bring disrepute upon the members of the younger society. No inst has done more for encouragement of art and artists, and any attempt to injure it by a rival shld be frowned down by the public.
April
Office moved to North Wm st nr Chatham. Critical of C&E. women’s rights agst nature. No art ads.
May
Mocks City Items ed of Trib for talking abt weather so much. Dislikes white houses and white walls without pics. May 12 p.2 Pictures for the Alms House: a bill for $275 for pics in Alms House has been refused by City Comptroller, with great justice. Spirit for encouraging fine arts has sprung up it seems in pauper establishment, indispensable that a few pics fr best masters be purchased and placed for inspection and amusement. This is a commendable taste, but it might be encouraged at less expense by purchasing season tickets of the acad of Design: altho we understand that certain of the occupants of the Alm’s Hse have expressed their disapprobation of the coll of pics at this Acad, and have signified their preference for the works of the old masters! If true, Commissioner undoubt justified in asking for the $275.
Taste for fine arts too long neglected, glad efforts being made to cultivate it in the poor house. Next demand will be an appropriation toward furnishing it in style of Louis XIV, which wld certainly be in keeping with the pics.
May 19 condemns hired mob at Astor Hse rioters, justified shooting them. Notes a new great historical ptg to be exhibited of proclamation of the Republic 25th Feb 1848 by Phillipoteaux, 24 feet long, sd to be magnificient. Very critical of Judson.
May 26 p. 1 Account of antiquities of Mexico, including ptgs, sculptures, etc of the Aztecs. Critical of Marg Fuller. Thinks Park Benj first to come out for Taylor. Paris corresp admires antique statues in gardens. P. 4 A Picture by Flagg, fr Newark Advertiser, Landing of the Pilgrims by youthful Flagg, striking merits, modern ptg has a lot of white but still a rich tone.
June 2 announce Park Benj and GG Foster will be contrib. And now has a “City Items” column, with the quotes, and a column on Fine Arts, on Intl Art Union, p. 3: in studying the effect of internationality on art (liberalised propagandism?), note that in the Renaissance the artists traveled continually and criticized ea other’s works, this is what shed glory on the age. Narrow patriotism chokes free devt of art, and internationalism has met with a shabby reception fr those most intimately concerned with arts in US.
Goupil gall of modern Fr and Germ ptgs free, liberal union plan, praiseworthy effort to send a student abroad, which is apparent in large umber of crude, distorted or absolutely worthless pics in galleries the indiscriminate contrib of Am artists. Need models and masterpieces to study from, even our truly accomp artists in danger of ptg poor pics or starving.
Idea that gd foreign ptgs will depreciate works of Am artists absurd. Must wish new Inst well. GGF.
June 9 Park benjamin addres son oddfellowship. Another warning about degenerate local lit. cheap printing has led to licentiousness. Would the sculptor study deformed figures? Would the ptr seek in loathsome spots the scenes for his pencil?
Wikoff instrumental in getting Forrest to blame Macready for his reception in England.
City Items supports baths and enlarging battery
June 16 no longer supports the peddlers, but the merchants, Gives sermon of Rev Hawks on charity. Ok with socialists in France. The Am Art Union p.2: let doubters read its transactions, all shld subscribe.
June 23, mixed on Bishop Doane. Schaus at Intl AU showed sweet pics by Schopin. Admires Crawford bust of wife in Am AU, sweet. The Fine Arts p.2-3 reviews Nye’s Gallery of the Old Masters, in advance of any other we’ve seen, real candor of catalog re claims of pictures, tho some sd to be originals we shld not endorse as such. But convey ideas of masters. Ruysdael, black and dirty yellow. Poussin observers might see marble hardness and stiffness, miss grandeur. And others, Dutch and Italian.
June 30, excerpts Lit World on archit, critical of Robt Owen and utilitarianism. Letter fr SS Osgood in Trib re Sutter’s fort.
July
Publishes Celio! And seems interested in phreno Fowler’s scheme for cheap housing. Critical of Hughes for encouraging Catholics to send money to Pope to fight the republic. July 21 Bangs is Items man for Globe. Bacon of Day Book caustic. July 28 puff Intl AU
Aug 4 p.2 Miss Freeman the Painter, delight exalted in Washington helping young genius, Anna Mary Freeman, the artist, complimented on her miniatures at the President’s, worthy of her talented father, brilliant destiny in fine arts awaits Am women. Notice of new picture by Court the Belle of Newport at Intl AU, anecdote of him seeing Belle of Newport
Praise Casali’s Euro American and Kossuth. John Brougham writing for them.
Sept 15 v crit of Robt Walsh in Paris (and his attack on Hudson, shakespeare writer); praise Wetmore at Am Art Union, distinterested, mocks Bayard Taylor’s writing, likes Courrier des Etats Unis. 22 big ad for Am AU distrib. 29 London AU on wane.
October 1849
6 Ital Opera humbug.20 give Poe poem, erratic. The Emperor and the artist David. Oct 27 p. 2 Art-Unions. Only one art union worthy of the name, Am Art Union, Intl Art Union is a deception,a private spec. Truth shld be known, Goupil tried to estab a branch of their business but failed, until got this idea fr GG Foster, and now French prints sell well, and have gotten a lot of puffs esp fr Foster. Absurd to say rivalry betw highly respectable and jobbing private concern, managers are honorable, versus ignoble agents. It matters v little what Willis may write in Home J, alw supports weakest side of any q fr lack of judgment, can make the worse appear the better reason. Only Herald and it not abusing it. People will be humbugged by them, thanks to the Native American citizen, who taught them what to do.
Mocks Horn’s Inveterate punster, and the Bubble.
Nov 3 praises Lit World. City Items, in the style of “City Items” talks of weather, then praises Intl art union as sublime, connoisseurs of backwoodsmen, meretriciously exquisite and luxuriously denuded French prints, in puribis naturalibus for sale, etc. 10 sorry to see funny Bubble die. 17 Like Charles King of C&E 24 Evers Moving pano, scenic artist at Park.
December
1 support active national interference on behalf of liberty. Like Ital opera.
8 more praise of panos. P.2 Model Artists: glad to see wisdom of age employed in prevention of immoral and indecent exhibitions, a pleasure to behold immaculate men coming forward to suppress public vice, to seize artists who offend sensitive taste by delineating fancies of a classic age. But anomaly to leave evil thing of a similar kind undone. Give groupings in a few superb and richly embellished ptgs the name of some well known master and whole world, however high and delicate, will study them with delight, no matter how near to state of nature. Put same groupings in hands of humble street itinerant vender and are consigned to vile place with scorn. Same with art, famed Venus de Medici critically examined, yet humble Lucchese Image maker crushed at one blow for a fig of eve in plaster. Elegant danseuse twist in fascinating shapes under lorgnettes, yet humbler Model Artist who caters to anotehr portion of the community in less aristo style is deemed immoral and improper. Something rotten in state ofour social org when such anomalies as these exist. If classes of society want to visit, have equal right with more refined and educated. Ok with Webb’s ambassadorship.
15 supports C Cushman, glad Trib agrees with foreign policy, supports apple women 22 Geo W Brega a Wash reporter for Herald. 29 now pub by B Hunt, Jun. & Co., 73 Nassau. Last issue.