Newspaper line drawingIn 1840, the Steamboat Lexington burnt in Long Island Sound with loss of over 100 lives. Three days later, there appeared in New York what was the first use of a line diagram to illustrate a current event in a U.S. newspaper. The Extra Sun was published with a finely drawn and violently realistic picture of the flaming vessel. Figures are seen lining the rails fore and aft and leaping into the water while a starboard lifeboat spills its occupants into the sea after a clumsy launching, In the foreground, frenzied women and men in stovepipe hats take a precarious refuge on the cotton bales that were the ship's cargo and cling desperately to bits of debris. This best-selling lithograph by Nathaniel Currier launched the future work of Currier and Ives illustrating events. |
