Currier and Ives



My Dear Little Pet

1st Grade Lesson Plan



Need:  Sleigh ride Cd and CD player

coloring page and crayons or colored pencils

stone, wax, ink

Nestle Treasures

This picture wasn't painted like a usual painting, it was stamped.

Explain lithography using stone, wax, ink

The men who owned the company that did all kinds of printing were named Currier and Ives. Write on board...have kids repeat

Nathanial Currier:

born at a time with no cameras or copy machines. When he was 8, tragedy stuck and his father passed away leaving Nathaniel and his 11 year old brother to take care of the family. They had their mother and a 6 year old sister and a 2 year old brother. When he was 15 he began to work in a shop that taught him lithography.

When he was 22 he started his own shop, he printed music sheets, architectural plans (show) and started doing pictures or anything that would sell. He did a picture of a tragic hotel collapse. Since the newspapers in those days didn’t print pictures, this sold well. He soon had a business producing news in pictures. Finally a newspaper contacted him to print a picture for their paper, this was the first picture in a newspaper ever! He began to make money.

He than met James Ives who began to work for him by keeping the books. He was a happy man and he began in help the business make money. They had a business in a office and they took up 3 floors. The fourth floor had the people who made the stones and drew the pictures. The fifth floor had the coloring department. First assembly line, as a colorist finished applying their color the print was passed to the next person who added a color. They were paid one dollar for one hundred small prints, a penny a page. Some schools would order prints black and white to teach their students to paint. They described their business as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures" They produced sports, hunting scenes, religion, city and country scenes, trains, ships, farms. race horses, children and animals. The produced 7500 different pictures and over one million prints. 
Show various pictures from the book or Internet

Did lots of Christmas cards.  A very famous Christmas song even mentions Currier and Ives, play "Sleigh Ride", raise their hand when their hear the artists name.

How to identify a real Currier and Ives print: (Point these out on our print)
A title
one or more lines identifying the publisher
a new York street address
may be a number at the bottom
may have the artists name
had black ink and colored with watercolors

Do an assembly line coloring project while music is playing...each child is assigned one color, and they each have a coloring page, they color the one thing on the page that is their color.  When the music stops, they pass the page to the next person; start the music and color the exact same on the next page, etc.  At the end there will be a page for everyone to take home.    Jingle Bells Coloring Page



 Currier and Ives prints are certainly treasures of life in America 100 years ago. Hand out Nestle Treasures