Ross & Ballard broadside advertising clothing for the "Southern Trade"

Pre-Civil War broadside advertising Ross & Ballard "Manufacturers of Clothing for the Southern Trade... ready-made clothing for men and boys, especially designed for the Southern Market" 10.75 x 8.25. Light creasing and discoloration, some doodle-blotted dollar signs and faint pencil in the upper left corner. Discolored strip on the verso, as from being removed from a scrapbook. Very Good overall.

Owned by William T. Ross and James Ballard and operated out of a second-story New York office, Ross & Ballard were an example of the involvement Northern businesses had in the slave trade. Dated July 1, 1860. They advertised in Cooley's An Epitome of Commerce North and South, Movements of Exports, Etc., with a Directory of Prominent New York Houses Interested in Southern Trade which justified slavery as a simple matter of economics and boasted that Northern businesses were an essential part of that 'success'--a reality eagerly overlooked by many.