McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896,. Lottery & Gift Concert Collection, 1753-1879 (inclusive).
Title:
Lottery & Gift Concert Collection, 1753-1879 (inclusive).
Vol. 1 (1811-1860) contains 74 pages on which are pasted between 2 and 8 lottery scheme circulars for school fund, state and local lotteries in Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Germany. The earliest items are two from England: an 1811 and an 1826 prospectus for lotteries. Much of the album is devoted to the results of Rhode Island lotteries, with the circulars signed in ink by the secretary of state, Henry Bowen (1785-1867). There are a number of pieces issued by the firm of F.E. Fuld & Co., of London and Frankfurt am Main, having to do with Austrian lotteries. The volume includes a single issue of the Benefactor (vol. 11, no. 21, January 1858, published in Jersey City, NJ), which is inscribed by an A. Cummings, with a request for descriptions and prices of magic lanterns, apparently sent to the McAllister firm. A number of the circulars are for lotteries to support the Patapsco Female Institute (operating 1837-1891), a boarding school in Ellicott City, Maryland. There are also advertisements for lottery brokers Taylor & Co. (New York), Cohen's Lottery Exchange (Baltimore), Peter Schneider (Frankfurt), T. Bish and J. & J. Sivewright (both in London) and George Taylor Jr. and the Temple of Fortune, both in Philadelphia. Vol. 2 (1860-1864) contains more than 250 lottery scheme circulars, managers' packet certificates, and drawing certificates, printed as broadsides and handbills. Many were issued (and were inscribed by) New York lottery broker Joseph Bates, operating from 11 Wall Street; the album also includes a single four-page issue of his Bates' New Monthly (vol. 1, no. 1, November 1863). Many of the circulars in the volume were issued by lottery managing firms including Murray, Eddy & Company, John A. Morris & Company, and Z.E. Simmons & Company (successors to John A. Morris), and cover state and educational contests in Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and Cuba, in particular Shelby College (Shelbyville, KY, 1836-1868). Vol. 3 (1803-1879, bulk 1864-1879) contains 130 pages pasted with lottery scheme circulars, broadside advertisements, and prize lists for drawings in Kentucky, Missouri, Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Virginia, Cuba, Spain, and New Brunswick, arranged with between 2 and 5 items on each page. Special items in the volume include a single issue of The Public Library Paper (April 1874), a tabloid publication detailing the lotteries held to raise funds for the "Public Library of Kentucky" in Louisville (chartered by the state in 1871) which, after moves and mergers, became the Louisville Free Public Library. The Paper and attendant materials feature a cut of the dry-goods store on Fourth Street, between Green and Walnut, proposed for the library. There is one prospectus for a lottery held in 1867 to raise funds for the Gettysburg Asylum for Invalid Soldiers; each subscriber was to receive a lithograph of the asylum buildings and a chromolithograph of the Gettysburg battleground. The top three prizes were $100,000 in cash, a 600-acre stock farm with a "splendid mansion," and "the celebrated yacht Henrietta," with the remainder of prizes paid out in cash. The volume contains a number of items from the notorious Louisiana State Lottery, including an 1876 brochure which mimics, in design and vocabulary, a railroad timetable, and others which include a wood engraving, by J.W. Orr (1815-1887), of what is labeled as the lottery's building. At the end of the album are a dozen pages of newspaper clippings, dating from the early 1800s to the 1860s. They include a full page from an unidentified Philadelphia newspaper (1817) and clipped advertisements and columns from others. Contained in the clips are the results from the 1810 Madras lottery, a six-part article on the history of Rhode Island lotteries (1856), and various columns criticizing games of chance. One advertised lottery was the "Grand Literature or Cyclopaedia Lottery" (1822) which featured prizes of perfect and imperfect sets of the work, as well as sets of plates from the volumes; tickets were sold at "Waite's Fortunate Office" at Third and Chestnut, Philadelphia. There is one undated newspaper advertisement for a lottery managed by Harrison & Pitts (Columbus. GA), for which the top prize was "a family of likely negroes," consisting of a woman, five children, and a man. The second prize was a rosewood piano, and the remainder of prizes were cash. The family, it said, was on view in the auctions rooms, and tickets were priced at $10. Vol. 4 (1753-1862, 1876) holds about 2,100 lottery tickets. There are 8 pages of tickets for states and charities, 1753-1843 and 1876, including canal, town, church, school, college, and city lotteries from Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. The earliest ticket, from 1753, was issued by the Connecticut Lottery to benefit the College of New-Jersey. There are 25 tickets dating before 1800, both letterpress and engraved examples; just a few date between 1800 and 1829, with the rest dating from the 1830s. In addition to the American tickets, there is one for the Irish Lottery (1799), one from France (1811) and one from Cuba (1876). Following that are 113 pages of tickets dating from 1844 to 1862, from state, school, and canal lotteries in Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia, with one ticket from the Art Association of Great Britain, and one from Cuba. They are arranged chronologically. Vol. 5 (ca. 1800-1878, bulk 1863-1878) has more than 1,500 lottery tickets arranged chronologically from 1862 to 1878, with a few tickets from the 18th and early-19th centuries. They cover lotteries held in Kentucky, Louisiana, Delaware, Georgia, Nebraska, and Cuba, and prize concerts in Boston, Washington, Chicago, and New York, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois. At the end of the volume are three pages of earlier tickets from lotteries to raise funds for charities, churches, and improvements such as the Washington City Canal, Piscataqua Bridge, Amoskeag Canal, and the South Hadley Canal. There is one ticket for the Washington Monument Lottery. Two tickets are present for lotteries benefiting the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, founded in Paterson, NJ, in 1791. There is also one ticket from a drawing for the Frederick Female Seminary, where the top prize was a "splendid music box." Vol. 6 (1864-1877) contains 48 programs, broadsides, and prize lists for gift and prize concerts. Organizers include the New York Jeweler's Association (Philadelphia), Kelley's Grand North American Prize Concert (Chicago), Crosby Opera House Art Association (Chicago), Cosmopolitan Art Union Association (Lexington, MI), the Art Union of Great Britain (Manchester), and Pike's New York Opera House Association (Cincinnati). Beneficiaries include the Gettysburg Asylum for Invalid Soldiers, Riverside Volunteers Orphan Institute (Burlington, NJ), Montpelier Female Humane Association (Alexandria, VA), Working Tailors' T.P. & B. Union (New York), and the victims of the French War (Washington, DC, 1871). While the material is predominantly American, there are several tickets from the Grand Bazaar for New Church of S.S. Augustine & John, in Dublin, Ireland (1865), and one from the Royal Dominion Gift Concert in New Brunswick, Canada (1877). Among the advertisements is a list of special prize goods, consisting of stationery, chromolithographs, engravings, and picture frames, manufactured by J.C. & W.M. Burrow, of Bristol, TN, and promotions for Hoyt's Novelty Store in Philadelphia, including a humorous cartoon titled "Five Ways of Drawing a Watch," published for Hoyt's by Dick, Andrews & Co.
ArchivalResource:
6 v. 60 cm.
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