Act I, Track 18

Guns and Ships
Original post: November 18, 2015

"Ev'ryone give it up for America's favorite fighting Frenchman!"

I didn't quite realize how much everyone did give it up for America's favorite fighting Frenchman until I was staring at a rather huge number of objects commemorating his 1824-1825 visit to the U.S. We have pitchers and playing cards, watch papers (I now know what a watch paper is!) and platters, plates and a bright yellow mug.

Two bits of random: First, to my untutored eye, it looks like the playing cards and pitcher are both after the Ary Scheffer's portrait of Lafayette (scan of engraving linked from catalog record: bibId 395612). Second, Lafayette's authorized heading in the Name Authority File, which is used by libraries to ensure that the same name is used for people across different libraries, is the rather long "Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de, 1757-1834."

#hamiltunes #hamildays #marquisdelafayette #lafayettecombidek #butiwantthemtobespectacular #pottery #playingcards #newspapers #americanantiquarian

Top: Marquis de Lafayette commemorative playing cards! Manufactured by Jazaniah Ford in 1824 or 1825. The image of Lafayette was on the ace of spades; the rest of the deck likely consisted of Ford’s standard deck of cards. (Although looking at the Lafayette cards, all aces in a row, brings to mind a very sad game of go fish or a very easy game of memory.)

Bottom left: Farmer's Cabinet (Amherst, N.H.), Jan. 1, 1825, p. 4.

Bottom right: Staffordshire pottery pitcher "in commemoration of the visit of Genl. La Fayette to the U.S. Of America in the year 1824." To see the other pottery (mugs! plates! more pitchers!), follow the link from the Staffordshire pottery record: bibId 507898, which takes you to GIGI, our digital image archive. Go to page 7 of the results, which is where I started finding Lafayette, and just browse through. It's awesome, albeit sometimes a bit gaudy for my tastes.