Title: The Arkansas Traveller. Scene in the Backwoods of Arkansas.
Lithograph handcolored, 1870.
Copyright 1870 by Currier & Ives, N.Y.
Small folio - image size 8 x 12 1/2" (20.2 x 31.8 cm).

Full title reads, "The Arkansas Traveller : Scene in the Backwoods of Arkansas. : Traveler,- to Squatter-can you give me some refreshments and a nights lodging? Squatter: no sir, have'nt got any room, nothing to eat. Fiddles away, - Traveler, where does this road go to? Squatter: it don't go anywhere it stays here. Still fiddling: Traveler: why dont you play the rest of that tune? Squatter; don't know it Traveler: here give me the fiddle; plays."

#6528 in "Currier & Ives Prints. An Illustrated Checklist" by Frederick Conningham.

Currier & Ives was America's longest running printing establishment, publishing over seven-thousand images in a span of seventy-three years. The early history of Currier & Ives follows its founder, Nathaniel Currier, and the first lithographic house of America, William and John Pendleton of Boston. During the early years, Nathaniel Currier ran the firm more like a job press rather than a print publishing house. It was the financial success of their Sinking of the Lexington lithograph, published in the New York Sun, that ultimately changed the course of the company.

James Merritt Ives joined Currier as a bookkeeper in 1852. He quickly became an indispensable member of the firm and in 1857 was made a partner. The name of the company was subsequently changed from N. Currier to Currier & Ives.

The publishing house of Currier & Ives was so synonymous with American culture that Leroy Anderson mentioned it in his song "Sleigh Ride" published in 1948, several decades after the firm had closed.

Condition: Fair condition with chipping in the upper margin and some scuffing in the image. Overall toning.