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.

During the early years, Nathaniel Currier ran more of a job press than a print publishing house.  Harry T. Peters states that the first print published in the style which made the firm famous was Ruins of the Planters Hotel, New Orleans, which fell at two O'clock, on the Morning of the 15h of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of which escaped with their lives, published in 1835.   However, his first financial success came in 1840 and was in conjunction with the New York Sun, the largest of New York City's newspapers at the time.  The broadside of the sinking of the "Lexington" published under the banner The Extra Sun had a lithographic image of the disaster by N. Currier under the banner.

James Merritt Ives started working at the firm in 1845*.  He became the firm’s bookkeeper in 1852.  Nathaniel Currier realized he was an indispensable member of the firm and in 1857 was made a partner.  The name of the company was changed from N. Currier to Currier & Ives.

The most productive years for N. Currier and Currier & Ives were the three decades after 1850.  The majority of the "famous" images that the firm published were produced during this period.  Many artists worked for the firm.  Frances Flora Palmer, known as Fanny Palmer, was one of the best known.  [She was responsible for the majority of landscape images produced by the firm, even though only a few bear her name.]  Also included were Louis Maurer, Thomas Worth, John Cameron, Charles Parsons, Napoleon Sarony, and Otto Knirsch.  Most of the lettering was done by J. Schutz.  Hundreds of other craftspeople worked for the firm grinding stones, pressing, coloring, selling, and supplying images.  Two more of the artists who submitted paintings or drawings to be lithographed were George Henry Durrie, the New England winter scene painter, and Arthur F. Tait, the sporting and Western artist.

The firm specialized in handmade, handcolored prints.  Although steam presses existed, Currier & Ives felt that those impressions were inferior to the hand-pulled impressions.  Prices for small folio handcolored lithographs were 20 cents each individually, and $6 per hundred wholesale.  The large folios ranged from $3 to $5 each.  They were not limited edition publishers, so we don’t know how many impressions made of each print.  In general, the firm did not make an image unless it felt that it could sell 100 impressions.   Lithographic stones of prints that sold well were saved and numbered for later printings when impressions ran out in the shop.  Lithographic stones of slower selling prints and small folios were reground and reused for other images.  If a number of impressions of an image were needed quickly, several stones were made as two printers can print twice as fast as one.  To do this, a stone was drawn and it became the parent stone.  Printing with specially formulated ink, the image was printed on transfer paper and applied to another stone.  The image line-for-line would be identical to the parent stone; however, the grain pattern would differ, as each stone has a unique grain pattern.  Also, if the new stone had a defect, it would be visible in the print.  New stones and multiple printing stones are the reason impression quality varies widely from print to print.  The firm might also reprint an image at a much later date.  The most celebrated of these was the Life of A Fireman series, which was reprinted in 1884.  It is interesting to note that Nathaniel Currier and James M. Ives were volunteer firemen in New York City.

The firm of Currier & Ives closed permanently in 1907.  The last fifteen years the firm was not very productive as tastes had changed and photography, which was invented in 1839, finally became easily printable. After the retirement of Nathaniel Currier in 1880 his son Edward West Currier succeeded him, and on the death of James Merritt Ives in 1895 his son Chauncey Ives succeeded him.  In 1902 Edward sold his half of the business to Chauncey and in 1907 Chauncey sold the firm to the son of a former sales manager Daniel W. Logan.  Poor health forced Mr. Logan to close the shop and dispose of its assets not long after he purchased it.  In the 1870s New York City had many lithographers, and most were commercial printers.  By the time Currier & Ives closed their doors in 1907 there were only a handful of lithographers left.  Most of the printers went to the more commercial processes of offset lithography combining the benefits of photography and lithography on metal plates.  The quality of these images are nowhere near as good as hand printed lithographs and even today when an artist wants a fine art lithograph they use the age old process of hand printing from stones as Currier & Ives did in the nineteenth-century.

Nathaniel Currier was born March 27, 1813 to Nathaniel and Hannah Currier in Roxbury, Massachusetts.  At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to William S. and John Pendleton of Boston who had set up the first lithographic establishment in America.  His apprenticeship served him well as he went on to be the largest publisher of lithographs.  Mr. Maurer described Nat Currier as being very gentlemanly and liberal.  As is evidenced by the success of the firm of Currier & Ives he was very devoted to his business.

Nat Currier had many friends including Horace Greeley and P.T. Barnum.  He was well known for his sense of humor and Harry T. Peters tells of one story about P. T. Barnum.  "Currier had heard that one day his friend, the great showman, had rushed into the barber shop of the old Park Hotel, at Beekman and Nassau Streets, to get a shave.  Barnum had hurried up to Tom Higginson, the barber, and said, 'Tom, I'm in a hurry.'  'Sorry for it,' said Tom, 'but it's that gentleman's turn next.'  'That gentleman' was an unshaven Irishman waiting for a ten-cent shave.  Barnum turned to him and said, 'My friend, if you will let me have your turn, I'll pay for what you have done.'  The gentleman consented, and, as Barnum found out later, had a full job done – absolutely everything the house had.  The check was for a dollar and sixty cents.  When Currier heard this story he found the very Irishman and had him pose.  The result was the famous cartoon, "The Man that Gave Barnum 'His Turn.'"

Nathaniel was married twice, his first wife Miss Eliza West of Boston.  He had one son with Eliza, Edward West Currier.  In 1847 he married Miss Laura Ormsbee of Vermont.  Laura and Nathaniel are memorialized in the famous N. Currier lithograph The Road Winter.  He lived at several addresses in New York City including 153 Macdougal Street, 137 Macdougal Street and 28 West 27th Street.  He had a summer house called "The Lion's Mouth" in Amesbury, Massachusetts.  He was known to like fast horses and he kept several in Amesbury.  Nathaniel died on November 20, 1888 at his home at 28 West 27th Street.

James Merritt Ives was born on March 5, 1824 on the grounds of Bellevue Hospital where his father was the superintendent.  He went to work at the age of twelve, however continued his education by visiting art galleries and reading at the Astor Library.  He married Caroline Clark in 1852, she was the sister-in-law of Nathaniel Currier's brother Charles Currier.  Charles Currier recommended James M. Ives to his brother who hired him in 1845 and he became the bookkeeper in 1852.  He was a talented artist himself and his artistic knowledge and insight into what the public wanted proved invaluable to Nathaniel Currier who made him a full partner in 1857.  His partnership made him, for all intents and purposes, the general manager of the firm.

He had two sons and four daughters and lived in Brooklyn until 1865 when they moved to Westchester, New York and later to Rye, New York.  He was involved with politics and civic welfare work.  During the Civil War he served in F Company of the 23rd Regiment of Brooklyn.  Like Nat Currier he loved fast horses and always had a good fast-driving horse.

* Jim Brust article in IMPRINT Autumn 2008, showing James Merritt Ives working at the firm by 1845.