Nathaniel Currier: Illustrating American News

In this installment of ‘The Art of Liberty,’ we meet one half of the artistic team responsible for America’s iconic 19th-century print media.
Nathaniel Currier: Illustrating American News
“Awful Conflagration of the Steam Boat 'Lexington' in Long Island Sound on Monday Eveg Jany 13th 1840, by Which Melancholy Occurrence Over 100 Persons Perished,” by N. Currier, Lithographer, was published in The Extra Sun. Metropolitan Museum of Art/CC0
|Updated:
0:00

Very often, it’s the cover photo on a newspaper or magazine’s front page that catches the eye and makes a browser want to keep reading after the headline.

Today, it’s hard to imagine a newspaper without flashy color photographs. Before the 1840s, there were no pictures of any kind used to illustrate news stories: no color photos, black-and-white photos, paintings, cartoons, drawings, or even rough sketches.

Tiffany Brannan
Tiffany Brannan
Author
Tiffany Brannan is a 24-year-old opera singer, Hollywood historian, vintage fashion enthusiast, and journalist. Her classic film journey started in 2016 when she and her sister started the Pure Entertainment Preservation Society to reform the arts by reinstating the Motion Picture Production Code. Tiffany launched Cinballera Entertainment in June 2023 to produce original performances which combine opera, ballet, and old films in historic SoCal venues. She's written for The Epoch Times since 2019 and became the host of a YouTube channel, The Epoch Insights, in June 2024.
facebook