on the 1863 new york city draft riots. >> from july 13th-16th, 1863, in the middle of the civil war, thousands of poor and working class why not new yorkers, incensed by equities in the new military draft, resentful about wartime hardship and enflamed by the lincoln administration's emancipation policies, looted and destroyed buildings, battled police, state militia and federal troops and brutally attack thed the city's african-american residents. in the century and a half since the new york city draft riots,

numerous psychological lahrs, popular -- scholars, pular books and articles are their rated and examinedhe significant events that comprised the largest civil insurrection this u.s. history, d and most of these works have included illtrions of the olence that were published in its immediate aftermath in the weeklyewspapers. none of these many studies or popular accounts havesed these images as much more than endorsement for or reiteration of their text. certainly, they have not served as evidence to be value waited in their own -- evaluated in their own right. illustrated newspapers covered the riots. the three american pictorial weeklies dominated the coverage. they were supplented by three british pictorial papers and two french publicationings. in all, some 80 engravings of

rying size, detail and quality depicted the unprecedented events. when these are considered together with the newspapers editorial cartoons and portraits along with cartoons inhe humor magazines published i the u.s. and abroad as well as separately published prints and broadsides, illustrations, unpublished sketches and t photographs, the number ofiot images expands enormously. their quantity and the international nature of contemporary pictorial news coverage of the riots presentf us with an opportunity to consider what historians may gain from critical eagement with an informed evaluation of such visual evidence. the destruction of the asylum on fifth avenue just north of the

reservoir where the new york public library is now located a late on the afternoon of july 13 was one of three riot events that received the most attention in the american and european pictorial press. built in 1843 by the association for the benefit of colored orphans, the asylum's building withts generous grounds occupied a block from 43rd to 44th street facing fifth avenue. whatever tensions existed between its white benefactors and the city's black community, it was recognized as a prominent, benevolent refm institution dedicated to sisting the city's impoverished black residents. within hours of the riots' start, the asylum became a target ofhe largely irish working class cloud that invade -- crowd that invaded, ransacked and then burnt it down. the plunder and burning of the

asylum were among the we dominant subjects of prints and pictorial news coverage. the july 25th issue of frank leslie's illustrated newspaper, at eight years the oldest of the three u.s. weekly pictorials, included a special double-page sulent depicting 13 scenes during monday, july 13th, ando a lesser extent, tuesday, july 14th, the first two days o the riot. since the pictorial papers were week of their publication, these ages may have actually reached the plic as early as july 18th, only five days after the violence began. publicationn such proximity to e events required intensive labor and haste entailing shortcuts that delivered the news in a timely fashion. but at some cost to clarity and

detail. so the e graving ofhe, as it's called, bni of the colored orphans asylum along with the issue's other illustrations was noticeably crude in its execuon although specific as to place. showing the crowd along the 44 street side of the burning building. the new york illustrated news, the new and lst solvent -- newest and least solvent pictorial weekly, also rushed out images of the riot withs within days of the onset of the violence. like those these images lacke clarity the, and they also were visually vague regarding context. despite the murkiness of these illustrations, both renditions of the attack on the colored orphans asylum featured one significant detail of the event, the number of women who were reported at the scene and their

looting of furniture, bedding and other possessions. in contrast, the pillaging women as they were described in both newspapers, were reduced to one prominent and a few hazy figurers in the harper's weekly engraved in the burning and sacking of the colored orphans asylum published a week later in its august 1st issue. while the three weeklies made a point of crediting in print their special artists who covered the civil war's military campaigns, no new york-based artist was identified. frank leslie had learned after his paper broke the so-called swill milk scandal in 1858 which involved the death of children who drank milk from cows that ate taintedded field from local new york distilleries that naming artists in certain circumstances only exposed them to lawsuit or physical harm, hazards that would surely be compounded in the context of

rioting and its aftermath. harper's weekly introduced in 1857 and once more began the most republican of the pictorial weeklies did not credit the 22-year-old thomas nast as the source of several of its illustrations. we know, however, that he returned to the city on july 12th from a frustrated effort to cover the battle of gettysburg. and years later he told his bioer if that he had witnessed -- biographer that he had witnessed and sketched some of the violent events. if any of the 11 harper's engravings of the riot were basedded on nast's work, it was the full-page illustration featured in the august 1st issue. nast knew the asylum neighborhood well having lived on westh street until 1 with an additional week for publication and production for

publication, the dramatic and detail thed illustration captured the scale of the asylum's grounds fronting fifth avennd was more evocative of the events than the pictures in leslie's and the illustrated news. its delineation of the rioters and victims and the narrative it conveyed, however, was less reliable. in accordance with the story-telling strategies of news engravers, the picture both compressed and extendedded the narrative of the event into one image. but aside from the very few women shown among rioters and and spectators in the foreground, the engraving presumably based on that sketch also portrayed scattered attacks on african-american children fleeing the burning building. 233 young wards escaped by a side entrance where theyere threatened by the crowd but not physically attacked. whatever the quality of the

illustrations, americans were able to view pictorial coverage of the riots within several days of their end contending whe barrier of the atlantic ocean, both drawings and engravings of the riots mt. u.s. press took -- in the u.s. press took two one to two wk from one to two weeks to reach europeanears. one venn national issue did not publish until august 15th. although bte engraved than their american counterparts, the fourres including one depicting the attacking the on the asylum were cheerily derived from -- clearly derived from frank leslie's supplement describe -- at first glance the illustrated london news' uncredited engrangs of the, as

it's called, the destruction of the colored orphans asylum which appeared in the second of two consecutive weeks of riot coverage, also seemed inspired by leslie. even more than the first, however, the london news engraving was final observed. and when compared to contemporary new york fire insurance maps, appears true to the physical structure and dimensions of the asylum's 44th street side. the first of -- [inaudible] american papers. it possessed resources that its german, french competitors lacked. the london paper dispatched a reporter to report on the american war in 1861. but by 1862, the talented and mercurial reporter had become a dead candidated -- dedicated supporter of the confederacy.

and the content of london news illustrations accordingly was determined by its correspondent's movement about the southern war front and and home front. in the north, especially new york, was not neglected. thanks to the brush papers long establishment of city-based correspondents. prominent if among them was charles dawson who was credited as the sketch artist the of several 1864 illustrations. he illustrate -- the illustrated london news did not identify any of its draft riot sources, but in light of subsequent works he's a strong cop tender as the artist of the -- contender as the artist of the riot sketches. he certainly needed the work as of july 4th in 1863 following the collapse of "vanity fair" for which he had served as

editor. the similarity between the leslies and london news illustrations, in the 1850s and 1860s, it was common for artists to produce more than one version of a kevin to aecom days -- of a sketch to i accommodate two different can clients especially if they were separated by an ocean. finally,he did not purchase sketches that were the basis for other publications'ngravings. the full-pageugt 15th depictioofhe, as it's caed, the insurgents burning the orphan asylum, copied inaccurate buildings looming in the back that could be mistaken for a parisian scene during the 1848 revolution but for the one vin yet tucked into its

right-hand corner. in keeping with the other iges of the american civil war, the visualizations often involve a mash-up ofuropean and iconography and vivid imagination. during these riots, frank leslie's illustrated newspaper assured its readers in its august 1st issue we have had no less than seven artists on the spot transferring with graphic skill the chief events. our sketches are all real, not your imaginary affairs with obscure backgrounds which will do for any scene. persons acquainted with the localities will attest to the accuracy of the sketch. these sketches were not made without risk and often obtained with great ingenuity, the mob looking intolerantly on such use of pencil and paper. special pleading was no do you

want apparent in leslie's printings because with some of the backgrounds were, indeed, obscure. and leslie's and the illustrated news were always challenging one another about whether their news images were derived from direct observation. if keep in mind that the artist the eyewitness sketch was but the first step in industrialized and fractured labor process involving intervening artist editors and supervisors and teams of engravers to quickly produce and disseminate pictorial news to the public. but essentially, the work of these artists was reportorial. drawings, mainly battlefront sketches, demonstrate that aspect in their appended notes and instructions to office artists and engravers regarding the rendering of flora, fauna, landscape, dress, equipment and the numbers and dispositions of

figures. but with no surviving original draft riot sketches to go by, can we assume the illustrations in at least the new york based weeklies and the london illustrated news were, to use that slippery phrase, authentic? as fellow practitioners o a new tre, a small don'tly of artists -- don'tly o artists knew one another well and often moved back and forth between publications. the special artists' small professional world, the preponce rand ill -- preponderance of illustrated events and the different points of view ises displayed suggest that artists followed the rioters together and often sketched in proximity to one another. there being marginal safety in numbers. in short, little accept rated the job of joint battles on the

homefront from that of joint battles on the war front. to be sure, ascertain thing the original sketches' authenticity does not make them either reliable or unreliable as evidence, but clarifying some of the conditions of these images' production helps us to discern and distinguish documentation from interpretation. and to look through middle 19th century eyes to try to capture a more complex notion of the viewing experience in the past. in short, it helps us to begin to answer the questions what did these pictures tell or how were they read by their viewers in the summer of 1863, and what can they tell historians 158 years ter. the crowd that gathered outside the ninth district on third avenue and 46th street on the

morning of monday, july 13th, as the draft lottery was resumed after a deceptive sunday lull alsottracted at least three newspaper special artists. the attack on and bning of the draft office with the fire quickly spreading to adjacent buildings and across 46th street initiated the violation. it also was the most illustrated of any riot event. some of the engravings displayed the aftermath, the smoldering remains of the buildings, b artists for leslie's illustrated news and the illustrated london news depicted the onset of the destruction. in keeping with the practice of the battle front colleagues, they evidently tried to find the best and relatively safest haven't isage point from -- vantage point fm which to sketch the scene. in this case, on the western fringe of the crowd.

that location provided three different perspectives of a butcher shop across the avenue from the dft office building, a rickety wooden shanty the upon which ringingleaders climbed to exhort the crowd. the three subsequently published engravings offer different views of the event. and especially of its location on the i don't want skirts of the -- i don't want skirts of -- outskirts he city. and cerin no photographs to otherwise gauge its appearance. another piece of corroborating evidence about these views of the city is an 1868 painting now in the collection of the new york historical society by the new jersey artist the mario. entitled give us this day our daily bread, the painting presen if a vast, clutteredded scene of excavation from the westward vantage point of a rear

window of a house near third avenue. the painting shows the strange, incomplete mosaic of new york's postwar housing boom with isolated buildings and lonely telegraph poles dotting a land scape dominated by vacant lots. this scene assumes additional significance when juxtaposed to the 1863 riot engravings. the perspective of mario's pating is from a spot one or two lots south of the location of the buildingt 677 third avenue where the draft office was housed. in other words, it offers the reverse view of the panoric illustrated london news engraving which looked east toward second avenue. in effect, the painting completed five years later is a draft riot scene chronicling the replacement of buildings, the destruction of which inaugurated

four days of unprecedented violation. new york's working class districts also were unfamiliar to most readers of the pictorial press with the exception of the five points, the area in lower manhattan. is so for readers in 1863 and for scholars today, the illustrated london news engraving officers called the conflict unusual in depicting an irish worng class neighborhood controlled and defended by the rioters and the unsuccessful attempt by volunteers on the afternoon of wednesday, july 15th, to break -- and establish territories. the specificity of the location, the block between 18th and 19th streets along first avenue, the relatively obscurity despite its numerous casualties of the event at the time and the absence of coverage of the incident in any

pictorial paper other than the illustrated london news suggests this illustration recorded an actual scene detailing the appearance of a particular place with some data as with battlefront artists likely gathered after the violation. so rather -- violence. so rather than serving as a symbol of depravity, the liquor store in the left background could be the corner establishment, quote, from the villainous looking customers. upstate visitor ellen leonard described in her 1867 harper's monthly article called three days of terror: an account of the time she spent in an upper floor apartment on a nearby cross street between first and second avenues, quote, on the very edge of one of the affected districts, unquote. the illustrations of the riot crowd itself may have conveyed more evidence to alert contemporary readers than is

immediately apparent. the visual markers of ethnicity were ubiquitous in the riot pictures. the pictorial -- of irish catholicism have been brought to readerses after three decades of cartoons, prints, reform tracks and city views. but finer distinctions of class position within the ethnicity could also be found in some of the illustrated press coverage in keeping with a convention that would characterize the practice of the illustrated press for some 30 years, these visual distinctions were not necessarily noted in the textual descriptions that accompanied the engravings. their appearance spoke for themselves. among the new york pictorial papers, the new york illustrated news published the largest number of pictures of the riot extending its visual coverage all the way to its august 29th

issue. it also offered the most brutish and brutal images of the rioters and and their depredations. the signs of irish catholicism such as the blunt features of one of the people said to have been, quote, sketched from life, ran throughout the illustrated news' riot coverage. some of these displays of, as they put it, celtic physiology, would be reprinted in september 1863 as illustrations in the american phrenological journal to support its findings supposedly based on postmortem examinations of typical rioters' heads and bodies. the crane yas, quote, moral, intellectual and spiritual regions were, sadly, dethe efficient. continuing the quote, their heads were houses of only one story and that a basement.

almost every illustrated news engraving depictedded very little variation among rioters whether male or female. that uniformity perhaps due to the antipathy of the irish towards the british publisher. the rioters i harper's weekly's illustration shared similar physical trades as did the frequelyatched metropolitan police. t occasionally, there were notable differences in appearan that drew attention variations among the rioters that were rarely reported in the daily press. for example, the grisly harper's weekly engraving of a thursday scene at 22nd street and first avenue showed ragged women and children around the body of a dead sergeant. the physiology of these figures aligned with the deavenuety of their acts, their behavior and

look merging into the ensemble that denoted rioting women in general as bad as unsexed and as amazons. the link between these women's appearance and immorality was surely not lost on the weekly's largely republican readership. but their rags and the alien features also designated them as the most deaths do you want and usually least -- deaths do you want and usually least physical of the city's poor. destitute. the second installment of riot institutions in frank leslie's provided readers with more distinctions among the rioters. in the august 1st issue, two pictures in leslie's description represent, quote, groups of rioters giving an idea of the parties concerned.

implicit in that opaque phrase was the idea of the parties' concern was readily apparent the weekly's readership. these images also contained specific information that offers insight into the chronology of the formation and early composition of the riot crowd. in particular, group of the rioters marching down avenue a offered a cross-section of new york mail workers including on the leavitt a laborer -- left a laborer and on the right, perhaps a veteran or a military volunteer. the three men in the middle are dressed in market formality that despeaks the sort of clothes and craft pride appropriate artisanal processions or, as testimony indicates, what was considered correct attire to be worn for demonstrations. this illustration may represent the first phase before it detier

rated into violence -- detier rated into violence when the primary goal of protesters was to stop the draft by enforcing a general strike. such figures soon boomedded the protests -- abandoned the protests, and in some case, actively opposed the rioters. lly, what did contemporary readers, why not and, conclude from the engravings of widespread attack the's mutilations and murders rate thed by the root yores against african-american -- rioters against african-american new york in addition to the destruction of the colored orphan asylum, 11 engravings out of 80 illustrations of riot events focused on such violence. among the most shocking and widely reported was the torture, lynching and immolation of willia jes at clarkson and hutchens streets near manhattan's west waterfront on

monday, july 13th. the many portrayals of attacks on the blame police recalled and seemed to reiterate the iconography of the antebellum anti-slavery movement which advocated the cause using images of the exploitation, sale and abuse of powerless enslaved african-americans. but despite the pictorial press' previous representations of slavery, abolition and emancipation, the meaning of such shocking and no doubt sensational riot images had undergone a shift by the middle of 1863. for readers of frank leslie's, harper's weekly and the illustrated news, the visualization of the riot and of its african-american if victims was entwined in the changing context of the war and a corresponding alteration in its pictorial coverage. thus, readers of the illustrated

press came upon the engravings of theuly violence having receeen in the june 27th frank leslie's heroic images of thault by black residents of the louisiana native guards against entrenched rebel forces in louisiana. a week later in the july 4th harper's weekly, they viewed black troops in the battle of -- in mississippi. during the following w pictures of pennsylvania blacks mobilizing to defend the north from robert e. lee's invading confederate forces and a scene of stalwart new york africaicanolunteers a heading to a recruitment office were prominently displ as full-p images in harper's weekly and the new york illustrated news. the latter engraving was all the the more strike thing in light of the incendiary pictorial report in that newspaper following the emancipation proclamation in january, a

full-page fifth avenue scene showing affluent black nice newn yorkers common deering the sidewalk as awe they, qte, ignored the privileges of their why not breath remember, unquote -- bre remember, unquote. moreover, inhe aftermath of the riots,he sacrifice and bravery of black soldiers was for depicted in fort wagner, south carolina. and the cover of the august 15thish hsu of the -- issue of the new york illustrated news depicted the capture of a confederate near buford if, south carolina. the rebel officer was a common centrally powerful african-american private serving in the 1st south carolina colored volunteers. the pictorial coverage of the draft riots exemplifies many of the capacities and limitations to what was a new form of

journalism. the illustrate presses reporting established its legitimacy as a news source. the war served as its testing ground for devising the definitive methods of producing as well as the convention ors for preventing pictorial news that it would use until the 1890s. the resulting coverage provided contemporary readers with visual data and narratives that detail the participants in and settings of events as they also dramatically portrayed their progression at critical moments. these time-bund -- time-bound qualities offered viewers information about the appearances and conditions of people and places that were otherwise incompletely depicted and often entirely omitted in mid if 19th century photography as well as contextual accounts

at the time. in the face of its, of the experiences, contingencies and fortunes of a long and bitter war, these ways of seeing and representing often underwent dramatic shifts. the conventions and methods for depicting warfare changed. lyrical deaths, romantic visions of orderly combat and pictureses of broadless loss were replaced by twisted corpses. the mosttriking change occurred during 1863 in the a alteration of the pictorial coverage of enslaved and free african-americans. influenced by the actions of black soldiers i the pursuit of union victory, the pictorial press with increased enthusiasm illustrated their contributions. in turn, those picres helped chge northern opinion about the role and place of black americans in the union. while never fully relinquishing

signs of difference, the armed and active black soldier took preceden as long standing figureof the heles antebellum slave, the early war undisciplined former slave and the child-like contraband lost traction. in that new context, the emphasis of the racial violation of the draft rye i don't wants was akin to the outrage illustrated press coverage of massacres of black troops such as the infamous confederate slaughter of captured black slaughter in tennessee in april, 1864. the new york african-american residents attacked during the draft riots as represented in the nation's pictorial press had achieved a new and terrible status. in a conflict in which they had come to be we dominantly portrayed as champions of the preservation of the union and a

significant part of the alliance to end slavery, they were no longer simply innocent bystanders, but they were now casu