Civil War Jubilee: Meaning Behind the Names

My next reproduction collection in shops in July is called Civil War Jubilee, celebrating the 150th Anniversary  of the Emancipation Proclamation.

A Jubilee is a celebration, but an older Biblical meaning comes from Jewish law. Every fifty years (following seven times seven annual cycles) the fiftieth year was celebrated as a Jubilee and part of that celebration was emancipation of the enslaved. When Lincoln revealed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, many recalled the Jubilee from the Book of Leviticus and linked the term to the proclamation.

Each of the prints in the rerproduction print collection has a name that has to do with the Emancipation Proclamation and the celebrations in 1863 and later. The print above is called January First, the day the new law took effect.

Most of these images are from the Library of Congress.

On the evening before January 1st, New Year's Eve, nightwatches took place all over the Union as people waited to hear the news. A starry print called Nightwatch recalls those Watch Meetings.

Freedom is the basis of the celebration and this leafy sprig is named for the principle.

People leaving the plantations for Union Army camps.

The paisley is called Birds in the Air, a metaphor for freedom.

A variation on Jubilee is Jubilo so this floral is Jubilo (although that didn't translate too well into the Japanese-printed selvages, I fear.)

Celebrations in 1863 and up to this day include singing, so

the print with the small figure is Harmony.

Many of those songs were sung a Capella, a traditional  way of singing spirituals.

(A Capella didn't translate too well onto the selvage either, but...) 

The Fisk Jubilee Singers were popular performers who sang a Capella---without instrumental accompaniment.

The Emancipation Proclamation is Lincoln's Legacy, the name of the floral.

Read more about the Jubilee Nightwatch in this post from last December:

And see a PDF with all the colorways of the prints in Civil War Jubilee at Moda: