Autumn in New England: Cider Making

During the 1850s and early 1860s, George H. Durrie specialized in making landscapes and idyllic rural scenes. After the Currier & Ives printing firm selected ten of Durrie's paintings to be made into lithographs, Durrie's charming pictures became immensely popular with a vast public. Among the best is this farm scene featuring the traditional task of cider making, set in a magnificent landscape of surrounding fields and hills typical of the northeastern United States. While a boy watches from his seat on a barrel, a man, wearing a red vest, stands beside a pile of apples, as he prepares to unload more apples from an oxen-drawn cart. In an open shed behind, another man operates the press crushing the apples into juice for making hard cider or vinegar -- ultimately consumed by the family of the farmhouse in the left background. To reinforce the wholesome well-being of this idealized rural way of life, a white steeple appears amidst trees in the right distance, beyond a field where a farmhand tends to a horse-drawn wagon.

Nathaniel Currier, who established a successful New York-based lithography firm in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century America. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (1824-1895), the accounting-savvy brother-in-law of Nathaniel's brother Charles, was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907. People eagerly acquired Currier & Ives lithographs, such as those featuring spectacular American landscapes, or rural and city views, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments.