The Darktown Fire Brigade—Slightly Demoralized

This lithograph is part of Currier & Ives's "Darktown Comics" series, popular prints depicting African Americans in humorous scenes. The image shows figures in chaotic disarray around firefighting equipment and a water scene, rendered in bright chromolithographic colors typical of 1880s mass-produced humor. The series influenced visual conventions that would persist in early comic strips and newspaper comics as the medium developed toward the twentieth century.