David Claypoole Johnston Family Collection

The David Claypoole Johnston Family Collection includes the work of noted cartoonist and humorist David Claypoole Johnston (1799-1865), his sons Thomas Murphy Johnston (1836-1869) and John Bernard Johnston (1848-1886), and his daughter Sarah Jane Frances Johnston (1850-1925). The collection consists of 23 boxes of material dating from 1799 through the early twentieth century. It is arranged roughly according to creator, media and size of material. The box list of the entire collection, which also serves as an inventory, is fully illustrated.

The David Claypoole Johnston materials in the collection consists of approximately 50 watercolors, two states of three of his most famous cartoons (including colored proofs, engravings and watercolors), pencil, pen, ink and wash drawings, working pieces, envelopes for Metamorphosis, a full run of his career-launching publication Scraps, lithographs from his own collection by Nicholas Toussaint Charlet as well as drawings and two copies of the posthumously published Slavery (Voluntary) as it Exists North, South, East and West. In addition to his primary art, the collection also includes various "archival" materials - such items include frontispieces, illustrations and artwork for published texts, woodblocks, copperplates for Scraps No. 7 and other examples of the mechanical printing process.

- Jaclyn Penny, Graphic Arts Assistant