(American Express) — J. Sage & Sons | Rare lithograph of one of the earliest depictions of the American Express Company

(American Express) — J. Sage & Sons

Turn-Out of the American Express Company Buffalo, N.Y. Buffalo: Sage Sons & Co., circa 1856

A rare and striking early depiction of the American Express Company—among the earliest pictorial records of the firm’s founding era in Buffalo, New York.

Founded in 1850 through the merger of four regional express services—Livingston, Fargo & Co., Wells & Co., and Butterfield & Wasson—American Express began as a transport and freight business linking New York and the Midwest. Its cofounders were Henry Wells, William G. Fargo, and John Butterfield.

This lithograph by Sage Sons & Co. shows a formal “turn-out” of uniformed American Express employees on Niagara Street, with the company name lettered on a carriage drawn by eight horses. The highly individualized, photorealistic faces suggest portraiture; seated behind the drivers may be the seven founding directors, including Wells and Fargo. In the background, the Niagara Street Methodist Church and Fargo’s home further root the image in mid-nineteenth-century Buffalo.

An important example of early American advertising. Harry T. Peters described the work as “one of the most delightful advertising prints I know of.”

No copies located in OCLC or recorded in auction databases.

REFERENCES:

Peters, America on Stone, p. 349; pl. 128; Grossman, American Express, p. 38-78; Severance, The Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo, p. 105-150; Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia, "American Express Company," Encyclopedia Britannica