Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Emancipation
1865
John L. Magee, publisher (b. ca. 1820)
USA: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Lithograph on paper
mat: 17-3/4"h X 13-1/4"w; sheet: 16-3/4"h x 12-1/4"w
Collection of Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library {FIC}
84.58

Emancipation lithograph; shows scene of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), center, giving the Emancipation Proclamation surrounded by several blacks; reads above image "And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid I do order and declare that all persons held as SLAVES within designated states and parts of states are, and henceforward SHALL BE FREE! (Procl. of Eman.)"; reads above Abraham Lincoln "Freedom for all Both Black and White!"; reads below image "Entered according to Act of Congress AD 1865 by J. L. Magee in the Clerk's Office of the Dist. Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania / Emancipation, J. L. Magee, Publisher, 305 Walnut ST., Phila."

Publisher, artist and lithographer John L. Magee created several images in support of President Abraham Lincoln, and the Union cause. This one celebrates Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which freed enslaved people in states that had seceded from the United States. Published in 1865, this print likely also commemorated Lincoln’s death by assassination in April of that year.