Recognizing the importance of visual materials as historical evidence, the Clements Library has actively collected the pictorial record of America's past. Images come in varied formats, from rare colonial prints to nineteenth-century pulp magazine woodcuts, from fine engravings to mass-produced lithographs, posters to prints on silk, and original works or art. The collection covers many genres -- portraits, views, representations of historical events, allegorical and satirical works, commercial graphic art, and ephemera.

The Library's collection of visual material is particularly strong in the following areas:

• Graphic satire

  The Clements has extensive holdings of Anglo-American satirical prints, representing nearly 175 years of political and social history. These prints, sold individually, were works of both art and propaganda. The Clements has a fine selection of American, British and European cartoons relating to the American Revolution and the Early National period.
  Commercial lithography revolutionized the popular market for political cartoons in the 1820s, making cheap mass-produced prints readily available.

  The Clements' collections of these images are particularly rich for the Jacksonian era through the period of the Civil War, and the post-war years, include numerous works of Thomas Nast, America's greatest cartoonist of the 1870s and 1880s, both as published in Harper's Magazine and Leslie's Illustrated and in original drawings.
  The Library's collections of late 18th-century British satirical prints concentrates on the seminal work of James Sayre (1748-1825) and the master caricaturist, James Gilray (1757-1815).

• American Views

  Views of 18th and 19th century America are indispensible historical documents. The Clements collects views -- engravings, lithographs, birds-eye views, and drawings -- that record the topographical history of the nation, its rural landscapes, wilderness, towns and cities, lakes and coastlines. An eccentric collection, there are views by leading American, English, and European artists, engravers, and lithographers, as well as anonymous amateurs.

  
  

• Historical events

  Pictures that illustrate historical events, places, and people, both representational and fictional, form an important part of the Clements' prints collections. The American Revolution, War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War are represented in a variety of visual material, including illustrations of naval and military action, encampments, and hospitals. Other areas of concentration include American domestic life, images of women, of Native Americans, sports and leisure activities, fairs, expositions, national celebrations, and natural history.

• Portraiture

  The Clements has a large collection of portraiture in print. The subjects, known identities, are Americans and foreigners associated with events in American history, living between the 1730s and the 1800s. The majority of prints are engravings or lithographs translated from other media, although the collection includes original drawings done from life.

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