CURRIER & IVES

Currier & Ives was America's longest running printing establishment publishing over seven thousand images in a span of seventy-three years.  The early history of Currier & Ives follows its founder, Nathaniel Currier, and the first lithographic house of America, William and John Pendleton of Boston.

The Pendleton brothers established their business in 1824, importing from Europe the stones, presses, artists, and craftsmen to publish prints and do commercial or job printing.   At the age of fifteen, Nathaniel Currier became Pendletons first apprentice.  The firm taught him the lithographic printing business; other apprentices of the Pendletons include J. W. A. Scott and Benjamin F. Nutting.  When John Pendleton moved to Philadelphia to set up a lithographic shop there, the young Currier went with him; and in 1833 when John Pendleton moved to New York City to open a lithographic shop, Nathaniel Currier moved with him.  Business was better elsewhere and the Pendletons sold their New York operation to Currier and a gentleman named Stodart in 1834.  Stodart left the business shortly after its inception.  The imprint of Stodart & Currier only appears on a handful of prints - one of them is Dartmouth College.