Henry Louis Stephens 1824-1882 Series, bulk: circa 1850-1880, bulk: circa 2000-2010, 1850 - 2021

Series

Identifier: BMA.PPD.HLS

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Henry Louis Stephens 1824-1882 series within the Paul Preston Davis Collection includes research materials, both original and reproduction, that cover the artist’s work and presence in the illustration industry from circa 1850 - 1880. Most items relate to Stephens’ contributions to periodicals and advertising, though there are four original drawings in the series. Periodicals in the collection feature examples of Stephens’ published work, such as bound volumes and individual issues of The Riverside Magazine, two issues of Punchinello, and tear sheets from St. Nicholas. Advertisement examples of Stephens work include several prints and trade cards for the tobacco company Kimball & Co., the department store Lord & Taylor, and “Pond’s Extract” trading cards and booklet. A notable part of this collection is Stephens’ personal scrapbook with print proofs of his illustrations for advertising, including: “Udolpho Wolfe’s Celebrated Schiedam Aromatic Schnapps,” “Howe & Odell Shadines,” “Bernard’s Golden Dentilave,” “Bush & Co.’s Borax Soap,” and “Dr. Colton’s Vegetable Dentonic.” Much of Stephens’ advertisement work in the series are lithographs and depicts anthropomorphic animals and other aspects of the natural world.

The Henry Louis Stephens series of materials were donated by Paul Preston Davis at the same time as the Alexander Charles Stuart 1831-1898 series, accessioned 41083.1. Davis’s research and notes are interspersed throughout the four boxes. These notes provide context for the primary sources in this collection. The research notes range from photocopies of nineteenth-century publications to website printouts, email correspondence, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century catalogs. Davis’s inscriptions on these documents identify works and writings that relate directly to Stephens. His interest in Stephens’s is potentially tied to Stephens’s trading card advertisement and children’s book illustrations; two concentrations Davis collected specifically.

Dates

Creation: Majority of material found within circa 1850-1880
Creation: Majority of material found within circa 2000-2010
Creation: 1850 - 2021

Creator

Davis, Paul Preston, 1931-2021 (Person)
Stephens, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1824-1882 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for researchers by appointment only. Please contact the Research Center for information on access and research.

Henry Louis Stephens (1824-1882)

Henry Louis Stephens (1824–1882) was born in Philadelphia to the merchant William Stephens. After briefly working as a clerk at the William S. Brown Co., Stephens studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Stephens moved to New York in 1859 and established Vanity Fair (1859-1863), a weekly magazine of satirical content and illustration, with his two brothers William and Louis. Henry Stephens served as Vanity Fair’s art editor, contributing numerous political cartoons and caricatures. During his career, Stephens published in Harper’s Weekly, Punchinello, St. Nicholas, The Riverside Magazine, and Mrs. Grundy, solicited written contributions for, wrote, and illustrated The Comic Natural History of the Human Race (1851), and wrote and illustrated several children’s books, including The Goblin Snob (1866).

During the peak of his career, an 1868 advertisement in The Riverside Magazine attested Stephens as a highly sought-after illustrator and offered subscribers a print of “The Quack Doctor,” drawn by “the most famous man in America for drawing such pictures.” Although lesser known for work in advertisement, Stephens produced a significant body of work in the field. Stephens passed away in New Jersey in 1882.

Extent

1.813 Linear Feet (3 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

The Henry Louis Stephens series includes materials compiled by collector and historian Paul Preston Davis relating to Stephens’s work as an illustrator, cartoonist, and author. A particular focus of this series is Stephens’s personal scrapbook, dated 1880, that contains print proofs featuring anthropomorphic animals. This series contains advertising prints, trade cards, print proofs, four original drawings, and Davis’s research materials and notes on Stephens’s published cartoons and illustrations for magazines.

Arrangement

This series has been broken down into three sub-series arranged by application of Stephens’s work: Sub-Series I – Advertisement work, Sub-Series II – Periodical work, and Sub-Series III - Book illustration and writing. The series is contained within three boxes. Box 1 and Box 3 contain the first sub-series: Stephens’s advertisement work in the form of prints, trading cards, and the artist’s personal scrapbook. In addition, Box 1 contains biographical and research materials arranged by Davis. Sub-series 2 begins in Box 1 and finishes in Box 2, and contains periodical work, such as those featured in Punchinello (1870) and St. Nicholas (1878). Box 2 continues Sub-series II and contains early issues of The Riverside Magazine (1867-1869). Sub-series III begins in Box 2, with examples of Stephens’s book illustrations and research done by Davis.

In 2025 during a larger reprocessing project that consolidated donations made by Paul Preston Davis, books were removed from document boxes to be cataloged with library and other monograph collections (see library catalog for more information). The series was condensed into two letter-sized document boxes and one flat box from four letter-sized document boxes.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Paul Preston Davis, 2011. Accession number: 41083.2

Accruals

Part of numerous donations made by Paul Preston Davis; no further accruals expected.

Sources

Dukes, Hunter. “The Comic Natural History of the Human Race (1851),” The Public Domain Review. Accessed 29 July, 2024, from: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/comic-natural-history/

Friend, Richard. “Vanity Fair: The One-Click History,” Vanity Fair (September 2004). www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/01/oneclickhistory.

West, Richard. “Cartoonist in the Shadows: The Forgotten Talent of H. L. Stephens,” Puck Papers: A Quarterly Newsletter Devoted to the Art & Artists of Political Cartooning, pp. 1–6 (1978).

The Riverside Magazine, vol. 2, no. 11, p. 528 (1868).

Leigh Rifenburg (Chief Curator at Delaware Historical Society) in discussion with Bri Cronin, January 2025.

Series Author

Original finding aid for this series created by Christoforos Sassaris, 2021; Edited by Virginia O’Hara, 2021; Edited by Bri Cronin, 2024.

Processing Information

The series was received in 2011 within original donor archival boxes and folders. In 2021, the letter-sized folders were replaced with legal-sized folders for secure placement within the document box. The organization and labeling system created by the donor was replicated during the rehousing process. The original folders were retained within Box 1. Four of the drawings, originally part of the scrapbook, were filed into a separate folder by the donor.

Items were assessed for best storage for scale and fragility. Interleaving papers have been added to Stephens’s scrapbook and used as backing for other acidic materials. Additional research and resource information on Stephens curated by the Research Center staff were included in the collection such as the finding aid, print-outs of materials referenced in the collection, and dividers left by the donor.

Due to the fragile status of the scrapbook, photocopies were made of its contents. Scrapbook photocopies that may be handled by researchers are located in Box 1, Folder 9. The scrapbook was rehoused from a document box to flat box storage. Contents are fragile and may require special handling by Research Center staff.

During reevaluation in 2024, staples were removed from mylar sheets and print-outs. Inserts were placed between the stapled collection of print-outs to maintain the original grouping.

During a reprocessing project that began in 2024, the materials were identified as part of a greater series of donations made by Paul Preston Davis. The Henry Louis Stephens Collection was changed from being a stand-alone collection to a series under the Paul Preston Davis Collection to maintain better provenance.

Accession No. 41083.2