The Darktown Fire Brigade -- To the Rescue!

The late nineteenth-century Darktown prints by Currier & Ives depict racist stereotypes that are offensive and disturbing. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art preserves such works to shed light on their historical context and to enable the study and evaluation of racism.

In this Darktown scene with caricatured Black (African American) figures, the print features a brigade of nine firefighters --each wearing a red shirt, blue pants, and black boots (some wearing their fire helmets). Eight of them (four in front/four in back) are struggling to pull/push a wooden pump wagon (labeled "NIAGARA") up a steep dirt road. The fire chief is at the top of the hill blowing his long fire horn. At the upper left, a boy has raised his stick to strike a white donkey, which has been hitched to the pump wagon beyond the struggling men. On the horizon in the upper right background, across a grassy expanse, is a burning house and a fleeing figure. The title is imprinted in the bottom margin.

Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888), whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life and its history. People eagerly acquired such lithographs featuring picturesque scenery, rural and city views, ships, railroads, portraits, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. As the firm expanded, Nathaniel included his younger brother Charles in the business. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (1824–1895), the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law, was made a business partner. Subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued via their successors until 1907. At that time, New York City printer Joseph Koehler purchased the lithographic stones of the "Darktown" series from the firm and produced restrikes under his own name for several more years.