Mar 21, 2024 - Sale 2663

Sale 2663 - Lot 167

Price Realized: $ 2,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(EDUCATION.) Hoen & Co., after G.C. Doud. Garfield Memorial University. Chromolithograph, 37½ x 24¾ inches; toned, trimmed to border with minimal loss to copyright statement, two short repaired closed tears, ½-inch chip on top edge, edges reinforced with masking tape on verso. Baltimore, MD: Rev. Ishmael Nathaniel Fitzpatrick, 20 November 1882
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

In the year following the 1881 assassination of President Garfield, fundraising began for the formation of a college for Black students in Montgomery, AL named in his honor. The earliest mention we find is in the Montgomery Advertiser of 29 April 1882: "Rev. Fitzpatrick, a very respectable colored minister of this city, is visiting different portions of this state canvassing for contributions for the purpose of erecting the Garfield Memorial University in this city." The Garfield Memorial University Colored Jubilee Singers were formed to help raise money for the proposed new school, but we find no mention of any progress beyond August 1883.

This elaborate print shows the school's proposed main buildings, with portraits of 24 officials and board members, most of them Black. They include Executive Board members Frederick Douglass and Blanche Kelso Bruce; and A.M.E. Bishop Alexander Walker Wayman. At top is a quote from the late President Garfield: "Throughout the whole web of national existence, we trace the golden thread of human progress toward a higher and better estate."

The design was by the artist Gorda Chipman Doud (1852-1944) of Montgomery. We trace only 2 examples in institutions, at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center and the Library of Congress; we find no others at auction.