Editing Currier and Ives (section)

==The firm==
The firm Currier and Ives described itself as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Prints". At least 7,500 lithographs were published in the firm's 72 years of operation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ohio.edu/news/99-00/328.html |title=Ohio University News and Information |publisher=Ohio.edu |access-date=2013-11-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927181138/http://www.ohio.edu/news/99-00/328.html |archive-date=September 27, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Artists produced two to three new images every week for 64 years (1834–1895),<ref name="tfaoi.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa436.htm |title=tfaoi.com |publisher=tfaoi.com |date=2004-04-21 |access-date=2013-11-16}}</ref> producing more than a million prints by hand-colored [[lithography]]. For the original drawings, Currier and Ives employed or used the work of many celebrated artists of the day, including [[James E. Buttersworth]], [[George Inness]], [[Thomas Nast]], [[Eastman Johnson]], and others.<ref name="tfaoi.com"/> The stars of the firm were [[Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait]], who specialized in sporting scenes; [[Louis Maurer]], who executed [[Genre painting|genre scenes]]; [[George Henry Durrie|George H. Durrie]], who supplied winter scenes; and [[Frances Flora Bond Palmer]], who liked to do picturesque panoramas of the American landscape, and who was the first woman in the United States to make her living as a full-time artist.<ref name="Answers"/>

All lithographs were produced on [[lithographic limestone]] printing plates on which the drawing was done by hand. A stone often took over a week to prepare for printing. Each print was pulled by hand. Prints were hand-colored by a dozen or more women, often immigrants from Germany with an art background. They worked in assembly-line fashion, one color to a worker, and were paid $6 for every 100 colored prints. The favored colors were clear and simple, and the drawing was bold and direct.<ref name="Brooke"/><ref name="2aa36">{{cite web|url=http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/2aa/2aa36.htm |title=The Long Island Museum of American History and Carriages |publisher=Tfaoi.com |access-date=2013-11-16}}</ref>

The earliest lithographs were printed in black and then colored by hand. As new techniques were developed, publishers began to produce full-color lithographs that gradually developed softer, more painterly effects. Skilled artist lithographers such as John Cameron, Fanny Palmer, and others became known for their work and signed important pieces. Artists such as A. F. Tait became famous when their paintings were reproduced as lithographs.<ref>"[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/07/nyregion/currier-ives-popular-masters-of-19th-century-lithography.html Currier and Ives: Popular Masters of 19th<!-- immutable title --> Century Lithography]"</ref>

Currier and Ives was the most prolific and successful company of lithographers in the U.S. Its lithographs represented every phase of American life, and included the themes of hunting, fishing, whaling, city life, rural scenes, historical scenes, [[clipper ship]]s, [[yacht]]s, [[steamship]]s, the [[Mississippi River]], [[Hudson River]] scenes, railroads, politics, comedy, gold mining, winter scenes, commentary on life, portraits, and still lifes.<ref name="2aa36"/> From 1866 on,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.philaprintshop.com/currhist.html |title=philaprintshop.com |publisher=philaprintshop.com |access-date=2013-11-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081224204525/http://www.philaprintshop.com/currhist.html |archive-date=December 24, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> the firm occupied three floors in a building at 33 Spruce Street in New York:

*Hand-operated printing presses occupied the third floor.
*Artists, stone grinders, and lithographers worked on the fourth floor.
*Colorists worked on the fifth floor.

Small works sold for five to twenty cents each, and large works sold for $1 to $3 apiece. The Currier and Ives firm branched out from its central shop in New York City to sell prints via pushcart vendors, peddlers, and book stores. The firm sold retail as well as wholesale, establishing outlets in cities across the country and in London. It also sold work through the mail (prepaid orders only), and internationally through a London office and agents in Europe.<ref name="tfaoi.com"/><ref name="EB"/>

The 19th-century Victorian public was receptive to the firm's products, with its interest in current events and sentimental taste. Currier and Ives prints were among the most popular wall hangings of the day.<ref name="2aa36"/> In 1872, the Currier and Ives catalog proudly proclaimed: "our Prints have become a staple article... in great demand in every part of the country... In fact without exception, all that we have published have met with a quick and ready sale."<ref name="Brooke"/>

Currier and Ives prints were among the household decorations considered appropriate for a proper home by [[Catharine Esther Beecher]] and [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]], authors of ''American Woman's Home'' (1869): "The great value of pictures for the home would be, after all, in their sentiment. They should express the sincere ideas and tastes of the household and not the tyrannical dicta of some art critic or neighbor."<ref name="6aa162"/>

Currier died in 1888. Ives remained active in the firm until his death in 1895. Both Currier's and Ives's sons followed their fathers in the business, which was eventually [[liquidation|liquidated]] in 1907.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url= http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-CurrierN.html|title= Currier & Ives|encyclopedia=The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008|access-date= August 3, 2009}}</ref> The public demand for lithographs had gradually diminished because of improvements in [[offset printing]] and [[photoengraving]].{{Cn|date=August 2022}}

Currier and Ives is mentioned in the popular [[Christmas Carol]] [[Sleigh Ride]].