Unless my brain storms up something good, this will likely be my last post until after the holiday, but I didn’t want to leave without giving you your weekly dose of Found in the LOC, in which I feature some great imagery sourced from the Library of Congress.
Keeping with the season, today’s edition includes 20 Christmas pics, illos and adverts from the 1890s. Above, a Harper’s Christmas cover from 1894, by Edward Penfield.
See the rest, AFTER THE JUMP.
(And for more Found in the LOC, click HERE.)
2. Santa, on the left, proposing a toast in 1890.
3. Santa creeping around your house, 1890.
4. This couple looks like they’re toasting an evil scheme for Christmas, 1890. What fun!
5. An 1893 cover for a magazine called The Horseman, which makes sense.
6. This 1894 image is called “A backwoods Santa Claus exchanging Christmas things for turkeys.”
7. Louis Rhead’s delicious cover for The Century’s 1894 Christmas edition.
8. A seasonal Scribner’s ad, 1895.
9. Let this 1895 image inspire you to get some fresh air after all those Christmas presents!
10. Maxfield Parrish’s cover for a Harper’s Weekly Christmas special, 1895.
11. Cover for 1895’s A Bachelor’s Christmas, the literary inspiration for the reality show. (Psych!)
12. No fooling here: an 1896 cover for Truth.
13. Santa looking quite drunk in an 1896 Puck cover by Charles Jay Taylor.
14. This 1896 illustration shows a couple envisioning their future, but it could also be a ghastly flashback from the past. Aren’t I jolly?
15. 1897 Puck insert with an earlier, inverted version of a familiar saying: “He who laughs best laughs last.”
16. Another Edward Penfield image, this one from 1897.
17. A Wizard-looking Santa and an extra from the Crucible, celebrating Christmas with Harper’s, 1897, also by Penfield.
18. “Santa’s First Visit,” by Harrison Fisher, 1899.
19. Udo Keppler’s 1899 image shows Uncle Sam and Columbia offering international largesse.
20. A Puck Christmas, 1899, by Frank A. Nankivell.
In Case You're Interested 