John Brown: Meeting the Slave-Mother
Currier & Ives, publishers, after Louis Ransom
A condemned man, a mother, and a child turn a prison doorway into a political stage. Published during the Civil War, this lithograph after Louis Ransom presents John Brown as a compassionate abolitionist martyr. Its central encounter belongs to an apocryphal story, while the Virginia flag, Revolutionary figure, and damaged Justice statue make the picture a revealing document of how that story gained emotional authority.